PAT DAVIDSON, PHD
BEN HOUSE, PHD
MASS2
Copyright 2017 by Rebel Performance, Pat Davidson and Ben House. All
Rights Reserved.
No portion of this manual may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including fax, photocopy, recording or any information
storage and retrieval system by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This
manual may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of
Rebel Performance, except in the case of a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages
for the sake of a review written for inclusions in a magazine, newspaper, or journal - and
these cases require written approval from Rebel Performance prior to publication.
For more information, please contact:
James Cerbie james@rebel-performance.com
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Disclaimer
The information in this book is offered for educational purposes only; the reader should be
cautioned that there is an inherent risk assumed by the participant with any form of
physical activity. With that in mind, those participating in strength and conditioning
programs should check with their physician prior to initiating such activities. Anyone
participating in these activities should understand that such training initiatives may be
dangerous if performed incorrectly, and may not be appropriate for everyone. The author
and Rebel Performance assume no liability for injury; this is purely an educational manual
to guide those already proficient with the demands of such programming.
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BACK STORY
My parents were my biggest role models, I never heard my dad complain
once, nor did I ever hear my mom complain about any of her duties being a full time mom
throughout my whole upbringing. My parents were able to create a nurturing environment
which they never imposed limits on me nor expectations. They allowed me the freedom to
be happy with whatever I wanted to become.
Growing up, I played as many sports as possible. My parents were not happy
picking me up every day after practice, but they did it anyway. My mom fed us, did my
laundry, and cleaned my room until I was 28 years old, when I moved out after getting
married. I paid my first bill at the age of 28 when my wife and I bought our own home. My
parents never once asked me for anything and provided for me at no expense every day. I
am extremely blessed by their love and commitment to me.
My brother and sister, both older, were major role models in my life. He followed
rules to the T and she was complacent. I quickly learned from both, that I would never
have a stagnant mundane life. I became impulsive and did everything I wanted at every
moment. I had been stapled, stitched multiple times, and cut my index finger off in high
school. These accidents all came with a lesson which have shaped me into who I am
today. Along with those lessons, my dad showed me a lot while growing up. He would take
us to our home in Mexico, which had no air conditioning nor warm water, that would teach
us the struggles others face and how fortunate we were growing up in America. Also, we
would take trips to our ranch, where we would see families living off the dump which was
other peoples’ waste. We would bring food to the unfortunate families, spend time with
them, and witness how they lived. As I approached my later teens, I started seeing my
neighborhood friends become addicted to drugs which lead me to see I had two choices.
Stay in school and in sports and see where that would take me, or become a neighborhood
drug dealer and user.
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It is tempting to join a gang; it comes with, money, respect and acceptance into a
family. I already had a family at home, so I never was persuaded. I’ve seen people shoot
and get shot, stab and get stabbed, beat with bats over the head, and I have been in over
200 fights. My family created the loving environment that prepared me for the challenges
to resist the temptations of the ‘hood.
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Foreword
A year ago I was sent a book by my training partner that stated, “This is the
new program we will start this Christmas. Read it and be ready.” The book was addicting
and I was immediately hooked. I started reading that morning and didn't put the book
down until I finished the whole thing. I immediately called up Ben (my training partner)
and said to him, “This book is amazing; who the fuck is Dr. Pat Davidson and why don't we
hang out with him?”
Half a year later, Ben and Aaron brought Dr. Pat Davidson down to Austin,TX for the
baddest seminar you've never heard of. The moment I knew he was coming I felt like a 15
year old school girl who got asked to prom by Tim Tebow. I remember the exact moment I
spoke with Dr. Pat for the first time like it was yesterday. We were in Austin at the second
Train Adapt Evolve seminar on a 5 acre lot of a 2.5 million dollar home, overlooking an
infinity pool off of Lake Travis. Dr. Pat was sitting with a man named Ethan, and I couldn't
stand another minute not talking to him about Ben and I’s experience with his training
book, MASS. I introduced myself to the two pale males and it was instant. Pat and Ethan
both had baggy shirts and the second word out of their mouth was a cuss word with a
laugh after. Love at first site. A true Bromance,
I told him I had read MASS and I loved it. Dr. Pat looked at me and said “oh yeah”. I
was like, “Motherfucker, Ben and I finished this program and Ben and I are going to do it
again.” He looked at me like this motherfucker is crazy and that was it. Through that
statement, he knew that I was no punk and neither was Ben. He knew that I've been in
some black places, came out alive and wasn't afraid to do it again. That is what MASS does
to you. You complete MASS 1 and you have street cred. You complete MASS 1 and do it
again, you are a legend. You complete MASS 1 twice and use certain phases for future
training, you, sir, have earned MASS 2. Welcome. You're now part of a brotherhood.
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Dr. Pat Davidson is a monster. Sit on that for a while… You know the person you
see talking and you wonder how in the world are they capable of knowing so much? The
person you wonder if he even sleeps? You wonder if he has some special way of learning
no one knows about? That’s Dr. Pat, he doesn't cease to amaze me every time we talk.
What is impressive to me, is how he retains all this information and gladly passes it down
to people like me and, if you're reading this book, now you. And he delivers it so eloquently
you can’t help but hug him after one of his presentations and hope that in all the sweat
that is dripping off of him some may land on you and you will be blessed with his
extremely persistent work ethic.
I was with Dr. Pat 7 days April 2017 and we talked about MASS 2. Shit, we test ran
a few of the workouts together. I had an idea of what the workouts would entail but had
no idea what the rest of the book would have to offer.
I finished reading MASS 2 last night at 12:30am May 2017. After finishing the book, I sat
back and stared at my screen for minutes and just soaked it all in. After sleeping on the
information given in this book, I am in disbelief. I know how much time it took Dr. Pat to
learn this content and come up with these amazing analogies. And can’t believe he's giving
it all to you in one book. This book gets DEEP. Dr. Pat can take something complex and
turn it around to make anyone understand. And most importantly, you will get to know Dr.
Pat. In order to know someone, you have to step into their life. You have to get as deep
into their shoes as you can and experience what they have experienced. Because if you
don't, you cannot ever understand where so much love and passion comes from. Dr. Pat
brings you into his life to moments you can’t even imagine and leaves you with this:
“Some people were born with pocket Aces, while others have mismatched 4s and 8s. You
were dealt a hand that you can’t change; however, you do get to play your hand. How you
choose to play your hand matters.”
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CHAPTER 1
You Will Be Mine
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My mother was a drug addict who died when I was 19. My father was an alcoholic
who was in and out of prison his whole life. I hope my father is dead, because he was a
useless person and was a drain on society. I feel almost nothing for my mother, but
generally speaking I’m glad she’s dead, because she was a waste of space; sucking up air
that somebody else could have been breathing. My grandmother and grandfather raised
me as a child until they died. They were solid human beings who instilled good values into
me. I was 8 when my grandmother died. I had to spend three long hard years under the
care of my mother. That time of my life was a nightmare. I eventually got adopted by an
aunt and was rescued from a sure fire path to hell. In high school, I got my first taste of
alcohol, and it changed my behavior immediately. It was only a short time before I was
abusing drugs and alcohol on a daily basis. I never consumed chemicals in a way that was
social. I consumed them with a death wish. I fundamentally do not understand
moderation as a person. If you’re going to do something, do that thing to the absolute
limits of where you can go. If you’re going to drink, go to a blackout every time. I am the
most thankful person in the world for being an alcoholic and an addict, because it came
with a personality trait involving the feeling of having a hole in me. I feel like there is
something fundamentally wrong with me…something missing. I’d love to try to fill that
missing space in. For a while I tried to do it with chemicals and perceived good times;
different states of consciousness, etc. These efforts failed miserably in trying to remedy
my self-perception. I was able to get sober in my early 20’s, and at the same time, I began
to pursue the education that would get me started on my career path. When I started this
pursuit, I realized something…that I could aim my behaviors, my addictions, my emptiness,
my unquenchable thirst at things…and if I aimed myself at a target, I could focus on that
target like a laser and I could attack that target with ferocity.
When I was 23 years old, I abused hard drugs in motel rooms with questionable
strangers. I drank myself to sleep at 8 am in the morning while listening to birds chirping
and kids playing outside. I never would have thought I would end up being of use to
anyone else in my life. So now, when people ask me to give talks, coach them, or write a
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sequel to a book, I wonder how such a life could be possible. What I’ve realized is that
most people don’t have the gift of the addict brain. There have been times in my life where
I’ve probably been certifiably insane; I’m not talking about times where I’ve been high as a
kite. I definitely have manic-depressive traits even when sober. There will be times I’ll sit
in front of a computer for 12 hours a day, reading and writing for up to 8 weeks at a time. I
won’t go outside for days. I won’t shower for days. I may not even eat for days. But at the
end of that period of insanity, I will have created something. MASS was put together under
such circumstances. I’ve found that most people don’t work this way. I can’t imagine any
other way to get things done. Why do I behave this way? I don’t know, and I don’t know
that there’s much point in asking questions like that. At a certain point in life, you realize
that it’s now or never. And if you’re going to make your life into something that you can be
proud of in the end, the only person who can do it is you. At a certain point, you realize
that THERE IS NO FATE, BUT WHAT WE MAKE.
Terminator 2 came out at probably one of the worst times in my life. When my
grandmother died in 1988, I had to move in with my mother. My grandfather had been sick
at this time too; he had cancer and wasn’t able to oversee things. My mother wasn’t fit to
raise a kid. She knew how to neglect, physically abuse, and disappoint. In 1991 in the same
year that the Terminator sequel came out, my grandfather died, and what was left of my
family seemed to splinter. My life became a constant experience of police at the house, a
custody battle in court, looming violence and terror, and, at the same time, try to go to
school and keep up appearances. I remember when that movie came out in the summer,
though. It was definitely the coolest movie I had ever seen at that point in my life. I don’t
think I had ever wanted anything more than my own personal Terminator. I would have
loved a cyborg to take care of me. There would have been no confusion about any topics.
The rules would have been clear. Any problem that came my way he would have
obliterated. Order would have been established, consistency would have reigned supreme,
and power would have been ever present.
Enough about me. I’m making myself sick to my stomach talking this much about
myself. Everybody in modern America probably needs a big dose of shut up, do your work,
don’t expect anything from it, do it again tomorrow, and keep moving forward. If you’re
reading this, then you probably did MASS. The original title of MASS was, “Operation
Drago”. Only a very small number of people received the program under its original name.
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The title was inspired by the movie Rocky IV. What I loved about that movie was that it
didn’t matter what your emotions were over your friend dying…the monster Drago is going
to be waiting for you. If you’re not ready for Drago, he’s going to kill you. And he’s not going
to care that you’re dead. The only way you’re going to be ready for Drago is if you take your
training to a place you’ve never been before. You’re going to have to kill yourself so that
Drago doesn’t kill you when you square off against him. You’re going to have to go to
Soviet Russia. You’re going to have to grind…day after day. Nothing is going to be fancy.
You’ll sweat and you’ll feel like you’re breaking. MASS 2 will be different. You have a
different foe to face at the end of this story. You’ll be facing a monster made from liquid
metal. You’ll have to adapt to an all new playing field…one that’s constantly varied, and
one that comes at you in ways you never thought possible. You’ll have to be smarter, you’ll
have to be more adaptable, and you’ll have to explore different pathways.
MASS was block training, as I understand it. You pick one primary methodology and
you hammer that method day after day during your training week. Your brain only
receives one message from the training that you’re doing, so that the hypothalamus can
coordinate the recovery process as accurately and effortlessly as possible. The blocks
should seamlessly flow one to the next in a way that prepares you for more demanding
phases later in the program. MASS 2 will be a concurrent approach to program design.
During the same phase/training week you will be using different training methods on
different days. The different training methods will play off one another and should
complement each other nicely. I will not be trying to create enormous competing demands
for adaptation between the different training sessions. The primary goal of MASS 2 is still
to change your body composition…we’re looking for more muscle and less fat…but I know
you’re probably also looking for objective performance enhancement as a result of this
program too…and you will certainly receive that.
MASS was my way of telling the world that I think it’s filled with people who need
to be slapped in the face. You think you’ve worked hard? You haven’t done shit. You don’t
need a fancy program. You need to try hard. You need to learn how to grind. You need to
shut up, stop thinking, and push…day, after day, after day, after day. You think getting
punched in the face sucks? It does…but what really sucks is getting punched in the face
day, after day, after day, after day. But if you literally just show up today and accept your
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fate, and you come back again tomorrow, and the next day, believe it or not, you will
change…significantly. MASS was a gut check. MASS gave you an acquired taste for shit.
Unless you like the way shit tastes, you haven’t really trained. You’ve earned MASS 2.
MASS was all about thinning the herd. MASS 2 is about optimization. MASS 2 will make
you have video game numbers in your lifts.
The Set Up
MASS 2 is a 16 week program divided into 4 training blocks lasting 4 weeks each,
and there will be 4 training days per week. There will be 3 different kinds of training days
in each training week (yes 4 training days and 3 different types of days…not a typo). The
three training days are as follows (a brief description is here, but there is much more
description to come)
1.
A stimulatory (stim) day – The point of these days is to stimulate your system…to
prepare you for a more intensive, incredibly demanding training day. You’ll do a little bit of
everything on a stim day – A little plyometric activity. A little lifting. A little conditioning.
2.
An aerobic/alactic day – The point of these days is that you will do work that is
primarily powered by the phosphagen system, and the recovery time will place you in an
aerobic intensity level. Essentially the exercise will be super heavy and/or explosive…and
then you should be able to recover to repeat your performance again and again.
3.
A developmental day – The point of the developmental day is to drop the biggest
stress bomb on you possible so that you kick all of the internal repair mechanisms of your
body into action. You will deviate from homeostasis big time. You will dive head first into
the acid bath hell storm. You will suffer.
Enough with all the set up. Let’s get to it. Let’s dive into MASS 2. Come with me, if you
want to live.
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CHAPTER 2
My CPU is a
Neural-Net
Processor;
A Learning
Computer
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I highly recommend figuring out what you want to do with your life. A lot of
people misinterpret this statement. Most people have no idea how specific I’m being when
I say this. I actually want you to be able to say that there is one thing, and one thing only
that is your life goal. The thing that I want to do with my life is to be the greatest mind
regarding the physiological development of the human organism that has ever lived.
Having this particular goal as the thing that I strive for in my life sets me up for very
specific behaviors. These behaviors set me up for a series of habits that, when summed
together, help forge the path that could allow this to happen. I believe that if I incorporate
the greatest collection of appropriate habits into my daily routine for the next 30 or 40
years, that I have an outside shot at accomplishing this goal by the time I’m in my 60’s or
70’s.
The reason that I think I can accomplish this particular goal is because I’ve always
loved movement, fitness, exercise, training, and competing. I’ve loved these things since I
can remember having memories. When I was a kid in the 90’s, I watched the fitness shows
that used to air during the daytime on ESPN after SportsCenter. I improvised my own
training methods as a teenager growing up on Cape Cod, where weight rooms were nonexistent for high school athletes. I would load my backpack up with weights, tie a coaxial
television cable cord to my waste and to the bag, and run sprints with it behind my high
school in the winter. Way back then, people were asking me why I was doing it. Part of the
reason was that I wanted to be the best athlete I could be, and to get a college scholarship
for sports. Another part was that I was beginning to experience something that was truly
a calling. That calling is to explore the concepts of training, and to figure out what the
ultimate training methodology actually is. I remember a few specific movies from my
childhood. The big three are: The Karate Kid, Rocky IV, and Bloodsport
I saw The Karate Kid in 1985 as a 5 year old, and I started karate the next week. I
was immediately very good at karate, and I loved going to those classes. I did karate for 3
years, and it was an incredible experience. Experiencing physical progress, being rewarded
for it with the belt system, learning katas, and having to do challenging physical drills is
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something I look back on and think to myself, “that began a wonderful process of instilling
habits in me.” I can specifically remember being lazy about training and practicing
personal weaknesses as a child. I wanted to rely on talent then. I still want to rely on
talent now. Karate was the first time I learned the hard lesson that talent is overrated. I
could have been so much better at it than I was. I gave up on it too soon. I think if I stuck
with it, the practice would have been tremendously beneficial for me in so many ways
moving into adolescence and adulthood. I met a road block way back then. I got into a
fight with my best friend when I was 8, and he whipped me real good. It felt like the karate
was a waste of time, because this kid didn’t do it at all, and he beat me soundly in a fight.
That is the primary thing that caused me to give up on it.
Rocky IV caught my interest in a major way in the mid-1980’s. The things that
interested me, more than anything in that movie, were the Ivan Drago training scenes. The
concept of being able to measure the physical capabilities that would actually matter for a
boxer floored me. If you knew what was important and you could measure where that
thing was at, you could figure out whether it was improving with training…wow…game
changer. Looking back, if you are 6 years old, and this is what is catching your interest, you
perhaps have something about you that predisposes you towards a career in exercise
science.
Bloodsport was the most badass thing I had ever seen. I saw this at a sleepover in
1991. There were probably 10 of us at the sleepover, all between the ages of 10 and 11. I
have never been more fired up in my entire life than from the experience of watching that
movie with those other kids. Seeing the test of all the different martial arts disciplines
being brought together in a brutal full contact fighting competition was the coolest
premise of a movie possible. What happens when you pit karate masters against sumo
wrestlers, against Thai fighters, against that monkey style guy, against Kung-Fu? Seeing
the story of Frank Dux - the years of training - starting as a child with a master martial
arts instructor was incredibly inspiring. The discipline, the focus, the perseverance, the
skill, the toughness…developed for years, for a decade, for more…that’s when you see the
end product that mystifies, that drops jaws, that can do the impossible. The only way you
could ever beat the monster, Chong Li, would be if you had prepared for anything, including
fighting blind. The ultimate master is the man who has thought of everything before it has
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happened. The ultimate master is prepared for all things, because he has thoughtfully and
systematically dove deeper than anyone else. All the variables have been accounted for.
All the things that really matter, that others have overlooked, have been thoroughly
examined, experienced, practiced, and can be called on in a moment’s notice; when the
situation deems that it is critical to be able to utilize this specific ability. An ability which
was gained through hard work in the trenches.
I used to have a top end goal of being the best athlete I could possibly be. At one
point in time I wanted to win a national championship in strongman as a 175 pound
competitor. That goal no longer exists, and the transition from having that goal to the
current goal of being the greatest mind of all time for physiological development of the
human organism was a tricky experience. The reason this shift was difficult was because I
was changing from a completely self-centered top end goal, to one that would benefit
other people. If I am going to achieve my goal, I’m going to have to learn an awful lot about
other people; because it is you, the other, who I am going to attempt to develop to the
highest possible level. My previous athletic goals are not useless for my new goal. I’ve
learned that everything matters, but some things matter more than others. The thing that
matters more than anything else is consistency. If you want to do something incredibly
lofty, you’re going to have to do extremely difficult things today - and tomorrow, and next
week, and next month, and next year, and next decade, and perhaps for 30, 40, 50, or more
years. You’re probably going to have to do things you don’t want to do. You’re probably
going to have to do those things over and over and over again. You’re probably going to
have to do something that the athletes who I’ve coached remember me saying more than
anything else…you’re going to have to acquire a taste for shit. You’re also going to have to
constantly keep your eyes open for new information, approaches, and techniques. You’re
going to have to adopt a mindset that loves to grow, get better, and embrace that which is
uncomfortable.
Ethan Grossman is a great friend of mine. He wants to win Mr. Olympia. Why?
Because that is his top end goal…That is his ultimate why?…Because…that is all.
Everything else in his life is set up to allow him to develop the habits, attitudes, and
behaviors that will make this possible. He has made the friends he has chosen because
they are people with the knowledge of the organism who can advise him. These are also
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people with positive attitudes, who are striving for their own goals. He has chosen to work
in the fitness industry because it forces him to wake up early, go to bed early, be in the
gym every day, to be surrounded by people who are concerned about their diet…to be with
the iron every day…to be immersed in the right environment. Try to have a conversation
with Ethan some time. Ask him what he’s doing right now. Be prepared for a very specific
answer. Ethan wastes no time in his day. Everything he does has a reason to it. He has
assembled a collection of specific behaviors for specific results. The results all feed
upward toward his top end goal. Ethan is the grittiest person I have ever met. He’s an
outlier. I asked him why he wanted to be Mr. Olympia. He said that it’s the ultimate test of
knowledge within the fitness and training world: you have to know an unbelievable
amount about training. If your program design is wrong, the stimulus is either too little or
too great, and the tissues don’t grow optimally. If your biomechanics are improper, you’ll
be injured because of the enormous training volume that is required to reach that level.
You can’t screw up application of nutrition because you won’t grow enough, or you’ll be too
fat. You have to know everything you possibly can about recovery and regeneration,
because otherwise you’ll end up injured, or unable to withstand the necessary training
stress. The specific top end goal he has will force him to have to be the greatest fitness
professional he can possibly be, simply through the learning and self-discovery necessary
to tackle all the variables needed to become Mr. Olympia. He’ll end up being a great
husband and friend because a social support system, love, and joy are such potent
regeneration tools. When you talk to him, it’s as if he has thought of everything…or that
he’s well on his way to it. Most people would think that it’s crazy, or that he can’t be
happy, or that they couldn’t do it. He’s one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. He’s one of
the people I consider myself immensely lucky to have actually met. How has he done it?
He chose one thing…and he is relentlessly marching towards achieving that one thing…
and everything he does has that one thing in mind for why he is doing it.
So we’re here…it’s just me and you right now. Do you know what you want? You
bought this book, so I know you want to train. If you bought this book, you probably
bought MASS, and you probably finished MASS. If you finished MASS, you’re someone who
has grit, and you’re someone who probably has a lot of good habits going for you in your
life. MASS is a solid training system. MASS teaches you about the day-to-day grind. MASS
teaches you that no matter what, you can get the job done if you just get the motor going.
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MASS teaches you not to drift too much from what you’re doing. If you want to get good at
something, do it over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over. If you want to win a
fight, punch the other person square in the face and keep hitting them square in the face
over and over. They’re going to hit you too. They’re going to hit you over and over. Who’s
going to break? You might break. That’s okay. Breaking is actually no big deal. If you break,
it’s because you tried hard. You put yourself out there. You went into the zones that most
fear. Nothing good comes from staying at home all day every day. Go out into the world
where it’s scary, and don’t be afraid of taking chances every single day; otherwise you’re a
coward. You might be safe, but you’ll never know the feelings that come to you on the
edges. You’ll never be great at anything.
This book is a guide for ultimate strength, power, athleticism, and body composition
changes. I’m going to tell you exactly what to do on every training day for this program.
More importantly, I’m going to tell you why I want you to do each thing. If you skip right to
the, “What You’re Doing” section of the book, I think you’re a coward. I think you’ll never be
the kind of person who threatens to be the greatest in the world at anything. I think you’ll
constantly skim the surface of developing yourself. You’ll be like the rest of the sheeople
out there. You’re timid, and weak. You think it’s all about talent. You think the people who
beat you are just more gifted than you. You’ll never get it. You’ll never see the one thing
that really matters…that it’s all about passion and perseverance. I hope we don’t meet in
person, because if we do, we’re not going to get along very well. And if you get in my way,
I’m going to run you over. Because there’s only one place I’m going…straight to the top.
And there’s only one speed that I’m going at…full blast. When I set out to do something, I
focus on that thing like a heat seeking missile, and there is only one possible outcome
regarding what I’m looking to acquire…you will be mine.
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I am a continuing education junkie. I spend tens of thousands of dollars per
year traveling and going to courses. Many people think I’m insane for doing this, and that
I’m throwing my money away. I think I’m investing in myself, and that this investment will
pay off big. The Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) courses I have attended have been
absolute game changers for me. I now know how to measure the joints and the
movements of the human body accurately. And I can improve most people’s biomechanics
dramatically the first time I meet them because of what PRI has taught me. The only other
continuing education course I’ve attended, that has been of the same quality as a PRI
course, was the Windows of Trainability course I attended, taught by Val Nsedkin and
Roman Fomin. This was a two day course where these two men outlined a complete
model of training. I attended that course in the fall of 2015. At the time that I went to this
course, I already had a large amount of studying of different training and periodization
models under my belt. I left that course a completely changed person. The paradigm that
they dropped on me made me see everything differently, and there is no going back.
If you’re going to be a good coach and creator of programs in this field, you’re going
to be a good thief. This book is nothing but thievery. I can’t help my criminal ways one bit,
and I’m not going to apologize for my stealing one bit. Other people are smarter than me.
I’ve read their books and heard them talk, and they’ve poisoned me with their knowledge.
Their reasoning, logic, and design have gotten into my system, and I literally think
differently because of exposure to their ways. So who are the people, who have poisoned
me, that will have components of their methodologies present in this training manual? As
I’ve already mentioned, Val and Roman. The way I’m going to assemble the different
training days together came from what I took away from that seminar that they taught.
Cal Dietz, and his brilliant Triphasic Training, is another resource that will heavily influence
the training you’ll be performing here. There will be training days that will be “aerobic/
alactic” days, focused on strength and power. I don’t think a greater strength and power
training session has ever been designed than the way that Dietz put together the
workouts featured in Triphasic Training. Charlie Francis, and the way he made use of high
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and low central nervous system training days, is another significant contributing thought
process to the design of this book. There will be low days, and on those low days, the
aerobic system will be featured as the primary target. Mike Boyle is also an enormous
inspiration for everything that I have ever done. If you go back to the original Phase 1 of
MASS, the 30/30 workout, that concept is something I got from Boyle in his Functional
Strength Coach 3 DVDs. The 30/30 is coming back again in MASS 2, which I’m sure you’re
excited to hear. In addition, what you’ll see is that there is a systematic progression in the
drills used in MASS 2. Boyle is the ultimate master of designing programs that
systematically progress every imaginable variable that could be considered. That mindset
runs through this book on a very deep level.
MASS is an interesting program design model to a lot of people. I have the benefit
of being a personal trainer in NYC, so I work with regular people, who have regular goals,
and ask regular questions. One question I get a lot from new people, is, “didn’t we just
deadlift yesterday? Should we be deadlifting again today? I thought muscles needed to
rest after you worked them”. Where do you even begin with answering this question? I
usually say things like, “Well, if you go through the literature on hypertrophy and
improvements in strength, training certain muscles and movements more frequently
actually has a lot of support. In studies where they compare changes in bench press
performance and cross sectional area of muscle tissue, you generally see that the more
times per week you bench press, the better your bench press gets, and the more muscle
MASS you accrue.” That’s what I tell people, but that’s generally not what I think really
matters. I come from a competitive lifting background, and the main thing I think about is
the “gun to your head” hypothetical scenario.
Imagine someone is holding a gun to your head, and they say, “If you don’t increase
your deadlift by 100 pounds in the next 3 months, I’m going to come back, and I’m going to
blow your brains out.” What are you going to do? I bet you’re going to deadlift a lot. I
would…it’s just common sense at a certain point. At a certain point, if you really want to
get better at something, you have to do it a lot. Now I’m just saying this for example right
now. If you want the real gun to your head book, get MASS, and do that program. This
program is more refined, more intelligent, more complete, and more thoughtful - more for
the long game. That being said, I still keep the concept of the gun being at my head in the
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background, and we’re going to do what we have to do to get where we need to go in a
timely manner, because the clock is ticking, and the gun is always there for all. I’m going to
explain why we’re going to do everything we’re going to do. In doing this, I will use
technical language at certain times…because I will have to. I will try to make this
information understandable to most, as I would if I were talking to a client, but at a certain
point, things are complicated with the human body, and this program is my best case
scenario of dealing with this complexity, and driving the body towards something very
specific.
This book is going to be based on a 4 training days per week model. I will also give
recommendations for the other three days a week. I will try to tell you exactly what to do,
but I will also give you some options depending on what kind of environment you live and
work in. The 4 training days consist of the following: 1. a developmental day, 2. a strength
and power focused aerobic/alactic day, and 3. a stimulus day. A chapter will be devoted to
each of these concepts so you understand exactly what they are and exactly why I want
you to do them. On the other days, I’m also going to encourage you to go outdoors, spend
time with loved ones, and to do things for other people. Many people will not pay attention
to these last pieces. I’m going to devote time towards telling you why those last pieces are
important…for your training.
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CHAPTER 3
I Have Detailed
Files on
Human Anatomy
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Stress, Hormones, and Gainsville, Part 1
The purpose of increasing circulating hormones is these chemicals speed up
the rate of cellular adaptations. After making this statement, I have to ask you a
fundamental question. What is the purpose of training? The answer is that the purpose of
training is to elicit specific structural and functional adaptations. What is a structural
adaptation? A structural adaptation is one where you change the number or size of
anatomical objects inside your body. An example of a structural adaptation is that if you
perform aerobic jogging, you will put more mitochondria into your quadriceps muscle cells.
What is a functional adaptation? A functional adaptation is one involving a change in
performance of a task. An example of a functional adaptation is that you improved your
mile run time from 8 minutes on day 1, to 7 minutes on day 47 of training. Structural and
functional adaptations support one another, and feed into the attainment of each other.
Structural and functional adaptations occur at the level of the cell, the tissue, the organ,
the organ system, multiple integrated systems, and ultimately at the level of the
organism. Creating these adaptations is the end goal. Individuals who have more optimal
hormonal profiles will experience faster rates of adaptation. Hormones do not make the
body do anything different from what it normally does, they simply change the rate at
which the body does what it will normally do.
I will explain the mechanisms associated with the hormonal response to exercise,
but before I do that I want to tell you a story that will provide you with a conceptual
understanding of the process of getting a hormonal response to exercise. To do so, let me
tell you about the Captain and his ship.
There are a million articles and programs offering up the next secret (a.k.a. gimmick/fad/
farce) method for packing on tons of muscle. Rather than give you some, “top secret”
approach or quick tip that will have you spinning your wheels in the gym, I’d rather explain
to you the overall concept of what has to happen for you to add muscle MASS to your
frame. As an overall concept, what I would like to get across to you here, is that the human
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body doesn’t want to put on muscle MASS. You have to make a conscious decision to do
something that is incredibly uncomfortable and jarring to your organism so that you give
your body no other choice but to pack on more muscle so that it can defend itself from the
same stressor if it is encountered again. Gaining muscle MASS is hard work that never
ends. Following the application of significant stress to your body, you need to recover. The
recovery period is where you add new proteins to your muscles so that they become
bigger and stronger. As un-sexy and not new as it sounds, if you want to gain muscle
MASS, you’re going to have to work very hard in the gym and live a healthy lifestyle
outside of it featuring appropriate sleep, nutrition, and hydration. If you understand the
big picture and why things have to be done a certain way, perhaps you will be more willing
to actually do it.
Think of a ship out on the open ocean. The ship encounters a storm. Driving winds
and rain wreak havoc on the deck while the hull is getting pounded by enormous waves.
The ship survives this storm, but it took on significant damage. The captain of the ship
looks around in the aftermath and sees a broken mast, holes in the sidewall, and a few
steady leaks. If he wants to keep sailing in these waters he’s clearly going to have to make
some repairs and perhaps revamp this boat. He analyzes the damage of the ship and sees
which areas were most impacted by the storm. He reinforces those areas. He puts up a
thicker, sturdier mast, makes the sidewalls denser, and shores up the leaks with a
stronger adhesive material. The ship goes back out on the ocean, and another storm
comes along almost exactly like the first one. The ship survives this storm with only
minimal damage. All the areas that the captain focused on for repairs held up pretty well.
The next day he and his crew patch the ship up a little bit and it’s ready for the open ocean
again. This time a completely different storm is encountered. Freak snow comes out of
nowhere, icy seawater sloshes over the sides of the boat, and chunks of debris come flying
through the air, shredding the ship. The crew and the vessel make it, but this time the
damage is completely different compared to the first storm. It was as if nothing the crew
had done in their repairs following the first storm had prepared them for this last squall.
The captain orders the crew to go back to work the next day. They focus on the areas that
were most heavily damaged in this last disaster and rebuild those sections with more
robust material.
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Do you think the captain and crew of our imaginary ship want to spend their days
laboring to rebuild their ship? Of course not. All they want to do is to continue to sail so
that they can do their jobs, in order to put food on the table. They would never put in the
effort to work on the ship unless it was very clear that the ship was unfit for use, and that
it needed to be strengthened to handle similar difficult demands again in the future. Do
you think they’re going to fix and rebuild parts of the ship that were unharmed from the
storm? Of course not. You focus your attention on the areas that need help. Can you fix
every part of the ship all at once? Probably not, you have a limitation to the size of your
crew, and they can only work so hard for so long. You also do not have unlimited amounts
of wood, tools, and other assorted pieces to be able to repair everything all at once.
Ultimately, you have to decide what kind of storm you want your boat to be ready to
handle. You simply can’t have it all. You also can’t permanently live in the storm. If you’re
going to be fixing your boat, you should probably do it when it’s sunny and you’re safely
docked.
Your body is the boat. The captain is your brain. The crew is your immune and
endocrine systems, working to trigger the appropriate cellular repair steps. The wood and
the tools that you use for repairs is the food you eat, the water you drink, and the sleep
that you acquire. You have to figure out what kind of storm is the appropriate kind in order
to trigger the appropriate repair process that will build you a new body that is more
muscular than it was before. Obviously running a marathon is an absolutely ungodly
storm that you could encounter, but the repair mechanisms that would take place after
wouldn’t be geared towards adding muscle to your frame. The storm has to be highly
specific. The raw material also has to be of very high quality that you use to repair yourself
after the fact. Do you want to be going into your next storm on a boat made of rotting
wood, or do you want only the finest, most outstanding construction material possible for
your vessel?
What is the perfect storm for creating the optimal stimulus for growing muscle? It
primarily comes down to three variables. It seems as though the combination of
mechanical load, heat, and acidity is the right environment for optimizing muscle growth.
The research in this area seems to indicate that multiple sets (3-5) of approximately 10
repetition maximum (RM) load using multi-joint compound exercises (squatting, bench
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pressing, deadlifting, pull-ups) with short rest (approximately 60 seconds) is optimal for
increasing muscle MASS. Go ahead and try doing 5 sets of 10 (with a weight where you
couldn’t get 11) in the squat with 60 seconds rest in between. You’re going to be hot,
acidic, and your muscles will be dead. You just hit the perfect storm. Your brain will
register this event and trigger all of the cascade responses driven through the hormonal
and immune systems associated with repair and growth of skeletal muscle that you can
muster up as an organism. You could do this kind of workout over and over again for a
pretty substantial period of time, and continue to get great gains for a while. The problem
with that exact workout is that it’s pretty boring at a certain point, and even if you were
the most diligent person, who cares nothing about routine and boredom, at a certain point,
your body would adapt to this, and you’d stop making any headway. You need to vary
things up a little bit to keep yourself engaged, and to force the organism to have to adapt
to a salient threat. The thing is, you don’t want to vary things up so much that it’s a
completely different kind of storm. If the storm is wrong, then the repairs will be to create
a different kind of ship. If the challenge to the body isn’t appropriate, it might strip
material away rather than add on.
To finish off this story, you need to understand the following things about the
storm and the repair process. Feeling a fairly heavy weight, feeling hot, and feeling an
acidic burn are the three threats that drive the muscle building train. When it comes to
driving adaptation, you need to scare your body…so threaten it the best you possibly can.
Sets between 6 and 15 reps are probably the most appropriate for hypertrophy, with sets
of 10 being most optimal. Rest periods need to be kept short to create the truly significant
heat and acid load response. If you’re using the same exercise over and over, look to stay
within 60 to 90 seconds of rest. If you’re setting up a circuit, you’ve got a little more
leeway, and you can make the rest periods shorter. Work really hard, but when you’re
done, make sure you recover appropriately. Earlier I talked about fixing the boat in sunny
skies and calm seas. Here’s my recommendation for sunny skies and calm seas in life.
Most importantly, have a good relationship with family and friends. Spend time with other
people. Social engagement will trigger the parts of your brain associated with relaxation,
regeneration, and recovery (specifically the nucleus ambiguous component of the
parasympathetic nervous system located in the medulla). Second, if you’re going to do
recovery exercise, do easy cardio. Try to get outdoors to soak up some vitamin D. You don’t
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want to try to create a whole new storm environment to fix your ship in. Light
cardiovascular exercise increases circulation (gets the repair pieces to the tissues), and
increases the amount of mitochondria in your body. Mitochondria are the location where
you utilize oxidative rephosphorylation of ATP. If you’re using your oxidative energy
system, it allows the muscle tissue to relax in that location. Being able to relax and hit the
off switch is critical when it comes to repair and growth.
When it’s time to be in the storm, make it the perfect storm. The storm should be
hell. See what you’re capable of surviving. Load the bar up pretty heavy. See what you’ve
got. Push through those last couple of reps. Keep your rest short…feel like you’re going to
die. When the storm is over, shut it down. Relax. Enjoy other people that you really like.
Eat, drink, and be merry. Do a little recovery work between storms. Make sure you don’t
have to recover from your recovery work. I wish you well young sailor. Hopefully your
vessel is sound and your captain is wise. Keep sailing, I’ll see you in Gainsville if you stay
the course.
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Stress, Hormones, and Gainsville, Part 2
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There are two communication systems in the body, one wired, the nervous
system; and the other non-wired, the endocrine system. Communication systems are
used to decode the meaning of the environment that the organism finds itself in, and to
communicate the environmental messages to the individual cells and DNA of the
organism. Hormones do not make the cells do anything differently than what the cells
normally do. Instead, hormones change the rate and the magnitude of physiological
expression of cellular behavior. Hormones are released from a source cell, and make their
way to a target cell where they exert their effect. Some hormones are released a great
distance from their target cell; others, released from a neighboring cell, while others still
are released in the same cell that, ultimately, is the target cell. The endocrine system
utilizes glands, ducts, and the circulatory system to send its messages throughout the
body. To exert its effects on the body, a hormone must bind to its receptor at the target
cell. Hormone receptors are located either at the plasma membrane, the nuclear envelope,
or inside the nucleus. Generally, peptide hormones have membrane bound receptors,
steroid hormones have nuclear envelope receptors, and thyroid hormones have nuclear
receptors. For all the types of hormones, the receptors are always proteins. Protein
receptors are shaped in a way that makes them optimal for a specific class of hormones.
When the hormone binds to the receptor, the receptor’s charge will be affected by the
presence of the new hormone molecule; and the receptor will seek to change shape in
order to find the shape associated with the next most stable charge. This changing of
shape of the receptor protein will set off an intracellular/intranuclear physiological
cascade effect that will ultimately affect one of the two phases of protein synthesis:
transcription or translation. Transcription is the copying of the genotype for a specific
sequence of the genome, while translation is the construction of a protein from the
genomic information at the ribosome. The post-translation folded protein is the ultimate
phenotypic representation of the cascade effect, featuring the cyclic effects of:
environmental signal leading to organismal recognition, leading to secretion of a hormone,
leading to migration of hormone to target cell, leading to binding of hormone to receptor,
leading to intracellular messaging cascade, leading to change in the rate and/or
magnitude of expression of DNA or ribosomal protein synthesis activity, leading to new
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proteins driving cellular behavior, leading to changes in organism behavior, leading to new
interactions with the environment…and the cycle repeats again and again.
Due to the complexity of having a multitude of hormones being released from
various source cells and reaching target cells simultaneously for a variable message, that
leads to an enormous number of concurrent intracellular effects. We need a working
model to make sense of any of this concept, and to have a sense of what to do with it as a
topic for exercise program design. In this book, we will focus on what makes a specific cell
a target cell, and what sort of internal environment is optimal for a robust anabolic
hormone response. As with all models, they simplify complex topics to the point where
there are occasions of inaccuracy.
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A target cell is a cell that has the protein receptor for a specific kind of hormone.
The attractiveness of a target cell to a circulating hormone becomes greater when the
sensitivity and number of the receptors to that hormone is increased (upregulation). We
are primarily interested in muscle cells in this book. Skeletal muscle cells are target cells
for all of the major types of anabolic hormones. The sensitivity of receptors varies greatly
depending upon the state of that particular skeletal muscle cell. Sensitivity of skeletal
muscle cell hormone receptors is changed primarily by whether that cell has been
recruited and fatigued. The greater the degree of recruitment and fatigue of that particular
cell, the greater the upregulation of hormone receptors, and the more that cell becomes a
highly attractive target cell for hormones. The next logical question is, how does one
recruit and fatigue particular muscle cells?
The Henneman Size Principle is the guiding phenomenon regarding recruitment of
skeletal muscle cells. The Size Principle states that at the lowest levels of force
production, the slowest twitch muscle cells will be recruited to perform the task; and that
as force increases within the task, faster and faster twitch cells will be recruited. At the
highest levels of force production, the fastest twitch muscle cells will be recruited. Fatigue
of muscle cells is based on repeatedly using the same cell for a task, and ultimately
witnessing a drop off in performance from that cell. The greater the drop off in
performance, the greater the overall fatigue. Not all of the mechanisms of what drives
performance drop off are known, but some examples include substrate depletion and
accumulation of metabolic byproducts. As a general rule of thumb, we can say that slow
twitch cells are easy to recruit and difficult to fatigue, while fast twitch cells are difficult to
recruit and easy to fatigue. The juxtaposition of responses between slow twitch and fast
twitch cells to recruitment and fatigue creates an adaptable organism, but does present
challenges to the exercise program design specialist. The program designer must
determine what sorts of cells are necessary for modifying as target cells, and devise
training schemes that maximize the receptor sensitivity for those cells to drive adaptive
changes into them.
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In his tour de force, Science and Practice of Strength Training, Zatsiorsky presents
his fiber corridor concept. The corridor demonstrates methods that will lead to specificity
of twitch type adaptations. Athletes who need to keep body weight low, and still display
the highest levels of force production within their sport tend to employ training methods
that systematically recruit and fatigue just the fast twitch cells. Athletes who are looking
to put on as much MASS as possible without caring too much for what cell type they are
targeting can use methods that will recruit and fatigue slow, moderate, and fast twitch
cells. If you want to target just the fast twitch fibers for adaptation, you are generally
going to choose resistance training methods involving the maximum effort method
(repetitions using 90% or greater of 1RM), or the dynamic effort method (sub-maximal
loaded repetitions performed at the greatest velocity possible stopping well short of
failure). If you want to target moderate twitch fibers, you can start using the repeated
effort method (loads under 90% with sets going to failure). Finally, if you want to target
slow twitch cells, you can start using approaches like the stato-dynamic method
(explained in greater depth later), which is low force, but high in duration for sets. There
are many more methods, particularly when opening the playbook into realms such as
plyometrics, change of direction, speed and agility related drills, and conditioning, but for
simplicity sake here, we will stick to resistance training drills only.
All of the methods described in the previous paragraph, perhaps with the exception
of the dynamic effort method, have the ability to create dramatic hormonal responses to
training through various pathways. The repeated effort method is the approach most
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commonly thought of for hormonal effects. Most classical research in the area of
hormonal responses to exercise have focused on repeated effort method approaches, and
have shown that multiple sets of approximately 10RM efforts with short rest periods
seems to be the gold standard for highest possible endocrine responses to exercise.
Performing 3 to 5 sets of 10RM with 60 to 90 seconds of rest between sets with
compound exercises like the squat is one of the most stressful stimuli that you can impart
on an organism. Such a protocol will stress every system in the human body to near
maximal. As was mentioned earlier, the endocrine system is a communication system.
What was not mentioned earlier, is that the messages that the endocrine system
primarily relays have to do with the maintenance of homeostasis. Homeostasis involves a
select set of variables that cannot leave an acceptable range of values or the organism will
likely die. Some variables considered homeostatic include temperature, blood pH, oxygen
tension, and blood glucose. A protocol like 5 sets of short rest 10RM squats will threaten
all of the homeostatic variables. In response to this, the body will mobilize defense
strategies that will protect homeostasis. Activation of the endocrine system is one such
response the body uses to ensure that homeostasis is not lost. The primary purpose of
the endocrine system is to return the body to optimal conditions that provide for the
greatest safe haven wherein homeostatic variables remain unchallenged. Ultimately, with
training approaches aimed at hormones, we can say that the best way to grow muscle
tissue would be to recruit and fatigue the maximal number of muscle cells (now target
cells), and threaten homeostatic variables to the greatest possible degree to magnify the
absolute hormonal response to the highest possible level. Multiple repeated effort
method sets are like a shotgun blast to the systematic steps of maximal protein
synthesis. A huge number of cells within the Zatsiorsky fiber corridor are recruited and
fatigued, a tidal wave of multiple organ systems stress is unfurled within the organism,
and the enormous threat to a variety of homeostatic variables forces the creature’s hand
to mobilize MASSive endocrine responses.
The hormonal response to the multiple bouts of repeated effort method work
described previously is a mixed bag. This protocol will cause the highest cortisol and
growth hormone responses to any regular training method. Catecholamines will also be
powerfully elevated due to the MASSive sympathetic response to this protocol. The
elevation of the catecholamines seems to be related to a downstream testosterone
34
response. The growth hormone response will trigger an increase in insulin-like growth
factor (IGF) through downstream mechanisms. In short, you see all of the hormones
involved with cellular remodeling all at once in MASSive amounts. For some athletes, this
mixed bag is not optimal. Greater specificity of hormonal responses can be achieved with
some of the other methods.
Repeated bouts of short rest between sets maximal effort method training are very
effective approaches for driving a significant testosterone response. Loads generally have
to be at or above 85% of the 1RM in order to witness this testosterone response. In the
past, I have devised blocks that have been testosterone specific blocks. One such block
featured a 3 week build-up. I would pair compound exercises, such as front squat and
bench press (A day), and deadlift and incline bench press (B day). 60 seconds of rest would
exist between the two exercises. Week 1 would feature 6 sets of 3 reps performed at 85%
1RM. Week 2 would feature 8 sets of 2 at 88% 1RM. Week 3 would feature 12 sets of 1 at
92% 1RM. Structuring the training week could be variable, but generally speaking, you want
to get at least 3 training sessions in per week, and preferably 4. This seems aggressive,
but I’ve personally done it, and witnessed many individuals perform it with extremely
impressive responses. I caution participants to avoid getting fired up for sets: remain
neutral emotionally as much as possible. Such a testosterone specific block generally
targets fast twitch cells. I recommend not doing more than 2 of these testosterone
specific blocks in an annual training cycle. I believe that this is primarily a neural oriented
testosterone specific block. In short, this is because neural cell bodies contain an
abundance of androgen receptors, and testosterone exerts profound effects on neural
cellular remodeling physiology. The three week build up is a good timing element. Synaptic
neuroplastic changes will take place within this time period. Neural cell bodies generally
take approximately one month to remodel, but a full month of this protocol borders on
what I would consider dangerous, and my hope is that the hormonal surge speeds up the
remodeling process at the neural cell body.
The stato-dynamic effort method uses loads of approximately 50% or less, and
witnesses the participant moving the load at slow velocities. 2 to 4 second eccentric and
concentric motions are typically used for this method. The low load and slow tempo
makes this approach target the slow twitch fibers due to the very low forces. While the
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force variable is low, the duration of the set should be large. Slow twitch fibers are easy to
recruit, but difficult to fatigue, and the longer duration sets are ideal for setting the stage
to turn these slow twitch fibers into target cells. Sets are typically performed for 40 to 60
seconds, and participants can build up to performing multiple rounds of 3 to 5 sets.
Typically the rest period is kept in a 1 to 1 ratio with the work duration.
The stato-dynamic effort method fits into the broader category of occlusion based
training approaches. Occlusion techniques were made popular by the Japanese, Katso
approach, also called Blood Flow Restricted Training (BFR). The overall findings from the
various protocols that have been used in BFR approaches is that a substantial increase in
growth hormone is typically seen, even when loads of approximately 30% 1RM are used.
The thought behind this approach is that occlusion of venous vessels prevents the
removal of metabolic byproducts from the local tissue area for an extended period of time,
creating a larger than normal level of waste products and heat trapped in the blood that
cannot escape until the occlusion is released. Once the occlusion is released, the blood
that is loaded with waste products ultimately is circulated back to central regions, such as
the heart and neck. Chemoreceptors in the carotid body and arch of the aorta register the
high concentrations of metabolic byproducts in the blood, send an afferent signal to the
nucleus tractus solitarius, which relays the message to the hypothalamus. The
hypothalamus perceives the internal environment of the body to be one that would
threaten homeostasis. The hypothalamus then begins a signaling cascade to the anterior
pituitary that unleashes a potent growth hormone pulse.
The stato-dynamic effort method asks the participant to never completely lock out
the joints during performance of the tempo based exercise. Such an approach keeps the
muscle tissue actively creating tension throughout the time period that the exercise is
being performed. When muscle tissue is actively creating tension, it mechanically
compresses the blood vessels that supply and drain the tissue, thus creating an occlusal
effect. Eventually the set ends, and the occluded blood is sent back into circulation,
leading to the mechanism of hormonal signaling described in the previous paragraph.
Since only the slow twitch muscle was recruited and fatigued with this approach, only the
slow twitch tissue is the target cell for the hormonal cascade.
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Creating appropriate training templates for athletes of various types could easily
be considered an act of cellular remodeling specificity. The wise coach is the one who
determines the fiber type that primarily needs to be developed, the rate at which that fiber
type needs to be developed, and how much of a hormonal driver for increasing rate and
magnitude of adaptations needs to be imparted on the athlete at any point in time. All of
the approaches listed in this book are considered to be advanced methods. Such methods
may not be necessary for young athletes; however, once athletes are reaching advanced
years in college or have been involved with professional sports and intensive training for
several annual cycles, these approaches need to be considered. When sport specific skill
and technical and tactical knowledge have reached their highest levels in advanced
athletes, those with more specific fitness for the physiological demands of the game will
have an advantage over their peers. At the highest levels, differences are measured with
the edge of the razor. The thought that goes into the focus of training blocks should be
just as exacting. If alterations in body composition need to be accomplished, we ultimately
come to the concept that the morphology of the organism is largely a hormonally driven
phenomenon. Those with the knowledge of specific hormones, and the techniques to
create specific target cells will be better suited to help individuals with that need.
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Stress, Hormones, and Gainsville, Part 3
To truly be able to understand topics, we need to be able to see the forest
through the trees, but we also have to stare at some bark. The big picture, in regards to
muscle growth, says that we have to stress the body with mechanical loading, create
some heat, and feel an acid load during training… and then we have to recover effectively
in the aftermath. The small details of muscle hypertrophy can be quite confusing, and
modern researchers are far from understanding all of the intricacies of the pathways
associated with growth and breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue. Despite the long road
ahead for anabolism based researchers in elucidating all of the pathways associated with
what it takes to pack on muscle tissue, there are some things that we can point to with
some certainty as being extremely important factors involved with the cellular and
molecular regulation of muscle MASS.
Discovering the rate limiting factor of complex inter and intracellular physiological
pathways is a critical component that researchers are always interested in discovering.
The rate limiting factor is the thing that typically determines whether progress continues
or halts in any endeavor. Suppose I own a shoe factory, and I have a few employees who
have assigned roles. Tom puts the lace holes into the leather of the shoes, Mary puts the
laces in the shoes, and Jimmy puts the rubber soles on the bottom. My team simply is not
making as many shoes per hour as I would like. Is it the team, or is there a rate limiting
factor? I put up cameras in the factory to see what’s going on. When I analyze the film
from the assembly line, I see that Mary is not cutting it. Tom is pumping out shoes with
lace holes, but Mary seems more interested in checking her cell phone than diligently
lacing up the shoes. The shoes are piling up into Tom’s work station. Tom simply stops
doing his thing, because the log jam is happening one step ahead of him. There’s no need
for Tom to keep doing his job. I have a talk with Mary, and she agrees to not use her phone
at work. Suddenly the production of shoes leaving the factory increases markedly. I
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figured out what the rate limiting factor was and I used an intervention strategy that
mitigated that component from decreasing productivity.
When discussing muscle growth, we see that it is governed by the interaction
between protein synthesis and protein degradation. If synthesis exceeds the rate of
degradation, then we have a net increase in protein fibers that accumulate in muscle
tissue, aka, we gain muscle MASS. When discussing responses to resistance training, we
see that it’s a process based more on increasing protein synthesis rather than greatly
diminishing degradation; whereas, responses to endurance training are more based on
limiting degradation. Therefore, when examining what people who lift weights are
interested in, we have to discuss the factors associated with protein synthesis.
Protein synthesis is the manufacturing of new proteins inside of a muscle cell. The
two phases of protein synthesis are transcription and translation. Transcription is the act
of copying the instructions from the DNA on how to build a new protein in the form of
messenger RNA (mRNA). Translation is the process by which the ribosome assembles a
protein based on the instructions coming from the mRNA that travels from the nucleus to
the cytosolic region where the ribosome resides. The question of greatest import is, which
of the two components of protein synthesis is the rate limiting factor? The answer is that
translation seems to be the lynch pin in the operation. Diving deeper into the translational
process, can we identify what is the rate limiting factor within this puzzle? The answer is
that the scientific community is not there yet, and it seems as though there are many
possible pathways that can be utilized in this process, but one that seems to be of critical
interest is that which is called, the mTOR dependent pathway. The other critical factor is
how much ribosomal biogenesis is taking place. Essentially protein synthesis is
dependent upon ribosomal efficiency, which is driven to a large part by the ability to
activate mTOR, and ribosomal capacity, which is related to the overall content of the
number of ribosome complexes present inside a muscle cell. If we can maximize ribosomal
efficiency and content, we should have the best case scenario for building muscle MASS.
39
Readers of this book are encouraged to explore this topic within the peer reviewed
articles associated with this topic. This book certainly will not present to you the full scope
of what is happening in this convoluted and extremely involved logistical beehive of
translational steps. Instead, the author would like to present to you key concepts that are
associated with the major theoretical phenomena involved in what governs the
translational machinery’s activities.
Transcription is a nuclear based phenomenon. The instructions for assembling all
of the proteins that the body is made of are coded for in the DNA. We need to copy the
code before we can begin the building process. The copy of the code is mRNA, and the
process of transcription is the act of creating the mRNA strand. The first thing that we
need to do is to unwind the DNA double helix to get the necessary structures into the
proper place to copy the appropriate code. A signal to activate transcription (STAT) is sent
to the nucleus to begin the process. Transcription can be increased by influences from
steroid hormones or peptide hormones. Steroid hormones, such as testosterone, move
40
directly through the sarcolemma and bind to the androgen receptor, which is located on or
near the nuclear envelope. Once the steroid hormone binds to the androgen receptor, the
hormone/receptor complex then migrates into the DNA and starts the transcription
process. Peptide hormones bind to the sarcolemma and activate a secondary messenger
cascade driven by janus kinase (JAK) enzymes. JAK phosphorylation activity causes the
release of STAT, which migrates to the DNA. STAT signals for DNA helicase to begin
unwinding the double helix. DNA helicase travels along the length of the helix, unwinding
it as it goes. Riding on the tail of DNA helicase is RNA polymerase, which is copying the
code from the DNA inscribed instructional palate. mRNA begins forming from the back
end of RNA polymerase. Once RNA polymerase has copied all of the necessary
components of the DNA to construct the appropriate mRNA segment, mRNA breaks away
from RNA polymerase and migrates through the nuclear pores into the cytosol. mRNA
then travels to a ribosome where it is situated between the two segments of a ribosome
(almost like mRNA is the meat that goes in between the two buns of a burger).
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Now that mRNA has reached the ribosome, we can see the translational process in
action. Translation is based on the ribosome instructing transfer RNA (tRNA) to collect
appropriate amino acids from the cytosol to bring back to the ribosome for construction of
the appropriate protein. tRNA brings amino acids back to the ribosome, which are
assembled in the proper triplicate orders to create the desired protein product. The act of
getting translation to start seems to be the critical matter in this entire process, and there
are multiple options that the body can utilize to try to pull off this building procedure. The
most discussed method of initiating translation is the mTOR dependent pathway. There
are two separate mTOR complexes: mTORC1 and mTORC2. mTORC1 is regarded as the
critical component, and seems to be a potentially powerful rate limiting factor in protein
synthesis. When mTORC1 is activated, it seems as though translation takes place and
muscles continue to grow, so being familiar with factors which can activate mTORC1 is of
critical importance.
There are many steps that take place at the ribosome, involving various proteins
and enzymes that must be initiated to begin the actual process of translation. The
enzymes involved in this process are kinase enzymes. Kinase enzymes participate in
phosphorylation based actions. Phosphorylation essentially refers to any time that a
phosphate is passed from one enzyme to another…much the same way that a bucket
brigade works to put out a fire. If a phosphate continues to be passed in an appropriate
manner from one enzymatic reaction to another, the resulting reaction will take place.
mTORC1 seems to be a big player in whether the phosphorylation cascade will continue on
the route towards achieving the translation phenomenon at the ribosome. The kinase
enzyme, p70s6k must be activated to begin translation. If we can get p70s6k to go
through a phosphorylation reaction, then translation will take place. p70s6k is an mTOR
dependent step though. So what we see is that mTOR is the show. How then do we
ensure that mTOR participates in this process?
mTOR activation appears to be dependent on a few cellular mechanisms. Leucine
availability in the ribosomal region of the cytosol appears to be a powerful player, as does
the state of protein kinase B (Akt). Akt is an enzymatic step that takes place prior to
reaching mTOR in the pre-translational cascade system. Excessive oxidative stress
appears to be a factor that will inhibit Akt and prevent mTOR from being activated, thus
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shutting the process down. The actions of anabolic peptide hormones, such as IGF and GH
appear to be players in opening intercellular portals that admit leucine into the ribosomal
region of the cytosol. Therefore, it seems that if we can create an internal environment
where we have chronic states of low oxidative stress and high levels of circulating
anabolic peptide hormones, we provide the appropriate setting for mTOR to be activated
and muscle growth from a ribosomal efficiency standpoint to be maximized. Achieving
optimal states of circulating anabolic hormones is associated with good, hard training
sessions that are not excessive in duration (not much longer than 1 hour maximally).
Having low oxidative stress seems to be associated with not having prolonged
glucocorticoid responses during resting states of the body. The presence of appropriate
content of circulating amino acids, namely leucine is also of critical importance. This is
where the merger of proper training and sound nutrition coalesces.
When discussing ribosomal content, it seems as though beta-catenin levels are
critically important for driving an increase in ribosomal biogenesis. Beta-catenin/c-Myc
signaling is independent of the mTOR pathway. This is still as yet an area in the literature
that is not strongly understood, but identifying factors associated with this type of activity
seems to be crucial.
The empirical process is reductionist in nature. We continue to break things down
into smaller and smaller constituent parts as we attempt to deduce what the rate limiting
factor of an operational procedure is. When it comes to hypertrophy, it seems as though
there are multiple options. When faced with consistently applied mechanical stress, the
body will find a way to make a compensatory change. The compensation is hypertrophy.
The robustness of an organism on this planet is driven by the plasticity of that lifeform.
Lifeforms need options and contingency plans to be able to survive in face of threatening
situations. Hypertrophy is the response to mechanical threat. While variability is a critical
component, it does seem that the mTOR dependent pathway towards ribosomal efficiency
and the beta-catenin pathway for ribosomal biogenesis are the primary drivers of the two
ways in which we maximize translational activity, which is the rate limiting factor of
protein synthesis.
43
If I am thinking in a personal and reflective manner on the ways in which I would
attempt to maximize the mTOR dependent pathway of translation, I would go with the
following approaches based on my understanding of the science and my, “in the trenches,”
experience as a strength athlete.
1.
I need to have a decent amount of oxidative fitness. If I’m going to maintain
chronically low oxidative stress, it really helps if I have a fairly high number of
mitochondria. Oxidative stress in local muscle tissue is often times the product of being
unable to inhibit tissue neurologically, and having that tissue exist in non-oxidative
conditions for excessive periods of time. Increasing the mitochondrial content of a muscle
improves the ability of that muscle to go into an inhibitory state. Also, having a better
aerobic system will allow me to exist under more of a parasympathetic condition as my
resting heart rate will be lower.
2.
I would not perform excessive amounts of high intensity cardiorespiratory exercise
that is of long duration. Plasma leucine levels seem to be highly linked to whether or not
sufficient leucine can be transmitted into the ribosomal region of the cytosol. Aerobic
exercise that is of high intensity and long duration is associated with decreasing plasma
leucine levels to the point where it is below a threshold point that allows mTOR to be
inhibited by an insufficient intra-ribosomal leucine content. I would perform aerobic
exercise that is of moderate intensity for moderate amounts of time. 140-160 HR for 30
minutes to an hour, 2 to 3 times per week maximally.
3.
I would manage my insulin levels well. Chronically high insulin levels are associated
with existing in an inflamed state. This inflammatory state, which comes from
downstream effects of insulin (such as increased interleukin-6 and reactive protein C)
cause oxidative stress, which would reduce the activity of protein kinase B. This reduction
in the activity of protein kinase B would be problematic for the m-TORC1 pathway.
4.
I would try to get plenty of sleep. Growth hormone is critically important for the
translational machinery. The actions of GH at the plasma membrane when it binds to its
receptor involve a secondary messenger cascade that ultimately activates the JAK/STAT
pathway for transcription related matters, but also opens a portal that admits leucine into
the ribosomal region of the cytosol (facilitating the activity of mTOR)
5.
I would train hard. Most importantly, I need to have significant amounts of
mechanical loading, which seem to be the primary signaling method for activating the
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transcription and translational machinery through what appears to be some kind of
structural protein, piezoelectric flow communication phenomenon that transmits
messages from extra-cellular, sarcolemmal, and intercellular strain related forces to the
nucleus and the ribosomal regions.
6.
I would try to eat quality carbohydrates and proteins and perhaps supplement with
amino acids in the peri-workout time period. IGF-1 is a potent driver of facilitating the
mTOR dependent pathway. IGF-1 also creates myogenic activity in the basement
membrane of muscle cells, which causes proliferation and differentiation of satellite cells.
These satellite cells will ultimately turn into new nuclei inside that cell, which will become
new sites for transcription. IGF-1 levels in the circulation are intimately connected with
the state of the amino-acid pool. Low levels of amino-acids in the circulation and within
cells will reduce the IGF-1 responses that an individual can have.
7.
I would find relaxation methods that work for me so that I can calm down and
recuperate between training sessions. The energetics of protein synthesis and the
recovery process in general is an autonomics driven phenomenon. If I can’t relax and have
fun, then I can’t enter quality parasympathetic states. Parasympathetic activity is
associated with anabolism. Staying sympathetic, constantly on, and being under stress
too often will kill gains. Relax with friends and have fun.
Good training combined with appropriate nutrition and allowing for recovery are
the hallmarks of successful MASS building programs over the years. The science is
beginning to explain why these approaches worked. Maybe by understanding what’s going
on a little bit more clearly you will be more highly motivated to hit all the details in the
MASS building process required to maximize gains.
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Stress, Hormones, and Gainsville, Part 4
Oxidative training has made its way back around to being everyone’s darling
in the fitness industry. It seems like everyone and their mother are doing cardiac capacity
blocks. I’ve been hearing a lot of people use real physiology terms to explain what sorts of
goals they’re working to achieve and that makes me incredibly happy. People are looking
for capillary density, mitochondrial biogenesis, eccentric cardiac hypertrophy, heart rate
recovery capacity through parasympathetic means, improved lactate clearance, etc. etc.
There are a few areas where I think our attention will be brought to going forward
regarding optimal development of aerobic capabilities of the organism. One of those
things is myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO2). MVO2 is a measurement of the aerobic
activity specifically at the cardiac muscle tissue. Typically we estimate what the MVO2 is
by measuring the rate pressure product (RPP), and inferring that number towards MVO2
scores. Based on this, what we will really be talking about in this book is RPP, and how to
go after this variable in training.
The RPP is the product of the systolic blood pressure and the heart rate (RPP = SBP
x HR). RPP is typically referred to as the work of the heart, but in truth it is actually a
power number, because of the fact that HR is a time dependent variable. Power is
mathematically represented as Force x Distance/Time. With RPP as a power variable, the
force is accounted for by the systolic blood pressure, the distance is the ejection of the
blood out of the ventricle into the systemic circulation, and the time is one minute (that is
the unit of time that HR is measured in). Because time is considered standard, most
scientists throw it out in discussion, and simply refer to the concept as a work variable.
The key component that distinguishes RPP from other cardiac related variables is
blood pressure. Most aerobic exercise variants that people participate in are rhythmic in
nature and minimize the blood pressure response. During activities such as jogging, the
autonomic response will be to constrict vessels in the gut via sympathetic output to
46
visceral regions and to open blood vessels in the periphery through the actions of the
catecholamines. By dilating peripheral vessels, this combined autonomic effect will
actually reduce total peripheral resistance (TPR), and minimize the systolic blood pressure
that the heart has to overcome to eject blood to the system. With minimal changes in
systolic blood pressure with jogging as the activity, RPP measures will be modest.
When strength training is the activity, the RPP response will be a very different one
as compared to jogging. If someone is performing a high load - low repetition compound
exercise, the skeletal muscle will be contracting forcefully. The high levels of tension
taking place in the muscle tissue will mechanically compress the blood vessels perfusing
and draining the working tissues. This compression of the blood vessels will prevent blood
from flowing, and ultimately create a stopcock like effect in the vasculature that reflects
pressure backwards all the way to the heart. The end result of this vascular activity is an
immense increase in systolic blood pressure. Typical strength training designs feature
large amounts of rest between sets, and as a result, the majority of time is not spent with
elevated heart rates approaching what would be associated with an aerobic conditioning
training session. When examining RPP responses, jogging and strength training both have
limitations for bringing the variable to its highest levels for trainability.
When comparing end diastolic volume of ventricles and overall MASS of hearts
between different kinds of athletes, some interesting things begin to emerge. A normal
untrained individual from the general population (reference person) has a heart that is
slightly more than 200 grams and holds approximately 100 mL of blood at the end of
diastole in the ventricle. Elite marathoners will typically possess hearts that are
approximately 300 grams and hold approximately 180 mL of blood. Elite wrestlers will
typically show heart measures of approximately 315 grams and be able to hold about 110
mL of blood. These examples are commonly given when discussing eccentric vs concentric
cardiac hypertrophy with the runner being the eccentric example. What is often not
discussed are the athletes who seem to have the best of both worlds, such as elite
cyclists. Cyclists will show cardiac measures bordering on the level of the wrestler for
MASS and the marathoner for volume. The reason that cyclists have such high measures
for both MASS and volume is because their heart rates are elevated for extended periods
of time and their thigh muscles are constantly pushing against relatively high resistance
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while peddling through terrain such as mountains, which creates high systolic blood
pressure responses. In essence, the cyclist has the best case scenario heart because they
are the example of consistently high RPP in training.
With popular sports in North America, such as football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse,
and hockey, there is reason to believe that a heart that has been trained to deal with high
RPP could be a definite advantage. These sports often deal with athletes using propulsive
lower body muscles at high intensities that would lead to contractile behavior that would
occlude vessels and reflect significant pressure back to the heart. Football, lacrosse, and
hockey in particular will also involve physical contact and elements of grappling with
opponents that will elevate blood pressure due to the tensile activity of muscles under
such conditions. If we fail to prepare the athlete for such conditions in training, the system
will be ill prepared to deal with these demands in competition. Athletes who are
unaccustomed to high RPP situations will probably demonstrate high levels of anxiety
under those conditions. The most difficult physiological activity the heart has to perform is
isovolumic contraction. When you put people into experiences where they are performing
48
powerful cardiac isovolumic contractions at a high heart rate, they tend to go into terrible
psychological situations leading to meltdown.
“When the mind is strongly excited, we might expect that it would instantly affect
in a direct manner the heart; and this is universally acknowledged…when the heart is
affected it reacts on the brain; and the state of the brain again reacts through the
pneuma-gastric (vagus) nerve on the heart; so that under any excitement there will be
much mutual action and reaction between these, the two most important organs of the
body.” This is a quote from Charles Darwin in his book, “Emotions in Man and Animals”,
written in 1872. Steven Porges takes this notion much further in his book, “The Polyvagal
Theory” and also explains how the muscles of facial expression play their own role in HR
responses and emotional experience. My contention is that sport involves components of
extreme exertion that lead to high RPP values. When the work of the heart reaches
incredibly high levels, the psychology of the athlete begins to go haywire, and the athlete
will display facial expressions demonstrating extreme discomfort and loss of feelings of
control. These are the moments where disastrous plays occur in the most important
competitions. If the athlete has lots of experience with physical training in high RPP
conditions, and has trained their mind to not overreact to the feelings associated with this
state, they may be able to maintain their composure during contests where they enter
this physiological state.
There are several approaches to creating training conditions that feature high RPP
settings. High intensity continuous training is a great modality for eliciting high RPP
aerobic settings. Step ups with a weighted vest certainly elevate blood pressure and place
the athlete into aerobic HR zones for extended times, as does high incline treadmill
walking with a weight vest. The other modality that I view as a tremendous avenue into
this sphere of training is circuit resistance training.
My personal favorite circuit for driving high RPP levels with resistance training is
the 30/30 circuit. This circuit is well known to anyone who has purchased my book, MASS,
because it is Phase 1 of the overall program. The 30/30 is a brutal workout that takes
exactly 31 minutes to complete. You choose 10 exercises, and you complete 3 rounds of 15
repetitions at each exercise using 30 second work and 30 second rest ratios. The goal is to
49
complete 450 total reps with the highest combined load between all the exercises. I’m
going to list out my personal favorite 10 exercise combo, as well as the heaviest weights
I’ve ever been able to complete all 450 reps with. I’ve also been fortunate enough to be
able to track my HR during this protocol many times, and it usually averages somewhere
around 145 beats per minute (BPM) for the 31 minutes, with a peak HR of about 165 BPM
towards the end. The protocol will take you to some very interesting mental places, but
the specific repetition goal and satisfaction of completing it at the end makes it incredibly
motivating and fun compared to most other methods of training. I believe there is an
incredibly dopaminergic component to this design, as many get addicted to this method of
training and feel like regular training just doesn’t do it for them after this approach. This
protocol seems to improve a host of variables in those who have engaged in it, including
strength, muscular endurance, and aerobic performance. In my mind, the main reason is
because it is training the work of the heart and improving myocardial oxygen
consumption. This is probably a variable that many people have ignored and not trained,
either because they were unaware of it/that it was important, or because it is an
absolutely miserable variable to train. Without further ado, here is my personal best
30/30 with my favorite combination of exercises:
1.
Trap bar dead (245 pounds)
2.
Seated overhead dumbbell press (40s)
3.
Lat pull-down (60)
4.
Safety Squat (175 pounds)
5.
Barbell Bench (155 pounds)
6.
Bent Over DB Row (55s)
7.
Inclind DB Bench (50s)
8.
Backwards Lunge off 3” Box Left Leg (30s)
9.
Backwards Lunge off 3” Box Right Leg (30s)
10.
Seated Cable Row (60)
Training with high RPP values year round is probably not ideal for most athletes, because
it is a very stressful approach. Systematically placing training that drives RPP into the
athlete’s system can work very successfully as a peaking approach prior to important
competitions (so long as the athlete is already familiarized with this approach). This
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approach may also be extremely valuable for modifying body composition in athletes,
where you’re looking to decrease body fat while preserving or increasing lean body MASS
due to the likely dramatic hormonal responses to such work. As with most programming
concepts, you need to try things out, think critically about the specifics of the
circumstances of the athletes that you are coaching, and do your best to individualize and
customize. It is my belief most people will see dramatic improvements in fitness rapidly
with high RPP training, because it is likely a novel stimulus, primarily because it is so
miserable that few have willingly put themselves through it.
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Stress, Hormones, and Gainsville, Part 5
My goal here is to provide some scientific explanations regarding this topic
and also to provide some opinion based statements from my own life observations.
Dietary factors are probably an absolutely enormous driver of this inability, but right here,
right now, I would like to keep the focus on training. To tackle this topic, identifying the
factors involving individual differences and training variables leading to hypertrophy will
first be addressed and will dominate the line of reasoning.
The phenotype is the outward expression of the genome. The primary component
of the phenotype are the protein molecules making up the organism. The combined
structural and functional organization and operation of proteins lead to the size, shape,
behavior, and attitude of the life form. When discussing factors that lead to altering body
composition, the discussion very rapidly becomes one that centers on affecting the
genome, and witnessing a different phenotypic expression coming from that creature. The
genome of life forms is found inside the nucleus within the cell. Within the nucleus
resides the DNA, and the proteins that provide the structural framework, and the
unraveling agents for the nucleic acid double helix and its 4 bases. There are 23
chromosomes for a sapien, and approximately 24,000 genes coding for the entirety of our
species, thus roughly 1,000 genes per chromosome. These 24,000 genes interact, splice,
and provide the blueprints for the approximately 120,000 different proteins that organize
to make a human.
52
Biology as its own distinct scientific discipline came into existence about 100 years
after the influential time period of Isaac Newton’s career (around 1800). Since the
introduction of the field of biology, scientists were interested in determining what the
factors were that led to inheritance of traits by the offspring from the parents. Within
approximately 150 years, researchers unraveled the mystery and Watson and Crick had
modeled the double helix pairing of DNA strands. Modern biological scientists have
managed to sequence the entire human genome, and, in the era that we currently find
ourselves, we are in the infancy of figuring out what to do with this genomic information.
The smartest minds in the biological world are working feverishly to do things like build
specific drugs for specific kinds of cancer, genetically modify life forms, and understand
the intricacies of polygenic interactions for the diseases that plague our society. Wrapped
up in all of this prestigious research are the answers to the questions we have about
getting jacked and tan, and why some people are, “hard gainers”. Despite the paucity of
specific knowledge regarding the exact mechanisms of being able to know exactly what
genes need to be acted on in exactly what way, there are some concepts we can take away
from the world of genetics to help guide our path here.
53
First and foremost, you’re going to look a lot like your parents, and you’re never going to be
able to escape your own individual genome. Some humans are advantaged in the realm of
building muscle tissue compared to others. Some people were born with pocket Aces,
while others have mismatched 4s and 8s. You were dealt a hand that you can’t change;
however, you do get to play your hand. How you choose to play your hand matters. Every
genome responds to the environment that the organism finds itself in. The environment
writes itself into the marginalia of the genome via signaling through proteins, and
ultimately highlights certain sections of the genome while downplaying the activity of
other genes. From a big picture standpoint, who you are as a being is the product of the
environment signaling to proteins, the proteins chemically switching on and off certain
parts of the genome, the genome coding for the building of new proteins, new proteins
being assembled that should be able to interact with the specific environment in a more
advantageous way…and a cyclic loop forms from there. The two poles of this circular
system are the environment and the genome. Environments are easier to manipulate
than genomes are, and because of this fact, the very first thing that anyone who has
struggled with putting MASS on should do is think about how they can change their
environment.
So what kinds of environments are probably disadvantageous for building muscle?
Training somewhere like a Planet Fitness is probably not a great environment to put
yourself in if you want to build muscle. That environment actively discourages people from
trying hard and lifting weights with intensity. Training at a sports training facility that is
dominated by traditional physical therapy thinking is probably not a great environment to
put yourself in either. The people training in such a place are probably incredibly conscious
of the relationships of every joint in the body during every repetition of every set, and are
terrified of any moment where a dysynchronous firing pattern might be perceived to take
place. Private training facilities in Manhattan where the women are all 6’2”, 110 pounds
(and the men are too) are also likely not places where the collective vibe of the
surrounding atmosphere will drive one towards Gainsville at a vigorous speed. What you
need to do first is find a facility with people who are trying really hard, seem to have fun,
the equipment is legitimate, and the squat racks are not congregated with people
performing curls or taking selfies in them.
54
Another environmental influence that I think is critical is actually having a program or a
coach. If you do not have a plan, you’re just doing random workouts. People who,
“workout” usually complain about lack of progress. What you need to do is “train”.
Training is deliberate practice that has a systematic approach, and a strategic way to
progressively overload the system in a thought through manner. When people are
participating in organized training, they are much more likely to consistently exercise.
Consistency is the least sexy, but most important variable to sure up in the entire
environmental manipulation game plan. A lot of weak, unimpressive looking people I
overhear talking about their inability to make progress are too busy deloading and
focusing on recovering from exercise of low magnitude than they are actually training.
Deloads happen because life gets in the way of training. You’ll probably make much more
progress actually climbing the mountain than climbing up halfway only to climb a quarter
of the way back down so you can start again. There are no planned deloads for MASS 2. I
dare you to go 16 weeks in the modern world without life getting in the way of your
training. There are holidays, weddings, family get togethers, work trips, etc. etc. etc. If you
need a little time away from the program, by all means take it. I think you’ll probably just
find that life will drag you away from it at certain points…let that happen. Don’t be the
person who declines food at an event because you’re on the special diet that can’t eat that
thing…you’ll be fine. Don’t be the person who has to abandon their family on Christmas
morning because you have to train. Chill out dickwad, and let life feed you training
deloads…it’s all good…it’ll come out in the wash.
Program design is an incredibly interesting topic. There are millions of different kinds of
programs that lead people towards results. The more well thought through the program
is, the more belief the participant will have in that program. The greater the belief behind
the participant, the greater the effort. The greater the effort, the greater the rate of
change, and the greater the results. Programs that are the most thoughtful and draw out
the greatest effort from the participant are ones that allow the participant to reach
meaningful, specific goals. Meaningful goals are met when the participant was previously
unable to do something, but gains the ability to do that task as a result of the training. If
you can make someone become accustomed to success and progress, they will begin to
crave it. Once the element of craving progress is imparted into the participant, they will do
whatever they have to do in order to get better.
55
One of the most critical environmental factors that is incredibly easy to manipulate is
time. Every time I have introduced timing to the rest and/or work components of a
training session, the results have been drastically different as compared to not timing
things. Left to their own devices, humans will work at a pace that is slow, and they will
dawdle between sets. I’m a huge believer in creating time confines within which you
should be trying to finish a certain number of reps, and I’m absolutely going to time your
rest window. When you time things, an exponential increase in the amount of work that
gets done is accomplished.
The biggest training variable to focus on with trying to design exercise that will add MASS
to people is mechanical work. When mechanical work goes beyond the threshold to easily
manage homeostasis of that person, an overload stimulus is imparted on that organism.
The organism will call on the adaptive responses to alter the physical body to handle that
same mechanical workload more effectively. In order to continually force the organism to
adapt, more mechanical work has to be consistently doled out in the program design. In
my day to day experience inside gyms in NYC, I see a lot of trainers choosing exercises that
do not feature large amounts of mechanical work. Exercises that feature large amounts of
mechanical work include all the variants of squatting, split squatting, deadlifting, pressing,
and pulling. In my opinion, 90% or more of your fitness should be the movements listed in
the previous sentence if you want to add MASS. If you’re worried because you’re not doing
enough direct arm or calf work in such a plan, I’ve got a feeling you are probably shopping
in the slim fit section of H&M. You need to load up the compound movements and work.
You need to minimize your rest so you’re not wasting time. You need to sweat, you need
to push, and you need to do this day after day after day.
When mechanical work reaches incredibly high levels, the possibility of chronic pain
syndromes and feelings of burnout start to manifest. This is where intelligence in program
design becomes increasingly more important. For MASS gains without injury, I
recommend incorporating more variety of loaded movements in every session rather than
focusing on only a few specific exercises. The other reason I recommend this approach is
that as fatigue rises, biomechanical proficiency decreases. The more you do the same
motion over and over again in a fatigued setting, the greater the deleterious effects on the
56
tissues doing that motion. If people are going to be fatiguing in a session, have them do a
variety of motions so that the effects of bad biomechanics are more spread out. When you
do a lot of different movements, you do not have to be particularly good at those
movements to avoid injury. If you are going to do only a few movements, you have to be
masterful at them to avoid injury. Volume will decrease the ability to display mastery over
specific movements. At certain points in training, participants should focus on specific
movements to get better at them, but this should be done with less mechanical work and
fatigue. If you’re going to grow tissue, you are going to have to push the mechanical work.
People end up becoming the embodiment of the actions that they display on a daily basis.
You start with an idea. The idea can morph into a plan. The next step is incredibly critical,
because this is where you start to put thoughts into action. When actions are repeated
again and again, they start to become who you are. As my older Irish relatives have been
saying for years, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Everybody I hear not doing
things, has a plan, and they talk a big game...but I wonder about what they’re actually
doing. People that accomplish things are doers. What are you doing?
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CHAPTER 4
Crossfit,
Olympic Lifts,
and Other
Assorted Topics
58
I Swear I Will Not Kill AnyÜI
To Olympic lift or not within the frameworks of MASS 2. Perhaps no other
programming question could cause more uproar. I don’t have a good answer for you on
this question. I’ve never done this program with Olympic lifts incorporated into the design.
I can’t do them in the facility I’m training myself out of in NYC, so I haven’t done this
program with them in it. I never ask anyone to do anything that I haven’t personally done
myself. I need to live things and experience them first hand to truly understand things. I
know that this program is incredible because I have lived this program. As it is written, it
works incredibly well, and if you’re someone who does Olympic lifts and you do zero
Olympic lifts during this program, your Olympic lifts will improve as a result of doing this…
maybe not on the first day back to doing them, but give it a couple of weeks. If I were
going to recommend a place to put Olympic lifts in this program, I would say that the stim
days would be the appropriate place. Put them in after you do you med balls and plyos.
Don’t crush yourself with a lot of volume on the Olympic lifts. I would recommend working
proper technique, and staying short of loading yourself into the 90% and up zone. I would
think stay shy of 12 reps per session with loads between 75% and 85%. In my head, I’m
thinking a glorified technique session is what would work best. The Olympic lift question
came into play in a conversation with the other members of the MASS team, James Cerbie
and Ben House. We realize that a lot of Crossfitters are going to gravitate towards MASS
and MASS 2 because these workouts are hard and they work. We realize that Crossfit
incorporates Olympic lifts into their design. I’m not ready to write this program for
Crossfitters who want to have an Olympic lift version, because I haven’t done it or seen it…
I’m not selling out and going somewhere I don’t know about. If you’re going to do it, that’s
on you. Ben gets it when we talked about it. In fact he nailed this idea way better than I
possibly could have. I’m going to share his response with you here because it’s one of the
best things I’ve ever read. His response goes deeper than just Olympic lifts in this
program. He’s going to talk to a subset of people who need to hear a very clear message.
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He admitted in our conversation that his response was heavy handed, and it is, but it
needs to be heard.
“If you are going to be a douche and add 1000 kettlebell swings and a 10 mile Ruck to the
Alactic Day, put this book down, get a friend, give him the keys to your car, and then have
him or her back over your face multiple times. There, done, you just did us all a favor
because there is stupid and then there is stupid. Also [next part is Ben talking to me in
regards to advice I should tell the readers], I haven't ever tried to add Olympic Lifts into
this program. MASS 2 as it is written is something I've physically done and I have had
others who I respect tremendously do as well. Thus, I don't know what the addition of
Olympic lifts would do or where to put them if anywhere. I also don't care about
specifically tailoring any part of MASS towards CrossFit. If you want to do CrossFit. Do
CrossFit. If you are starting MASS 2. Run MASS 2. Burn the life rafts and get the fucking
job done. The industry doesn't need more program jumpers. I hope you drown.”
I’m no stranger to rants, and I love it when other coaches can lay down the law with their
own epic rants. That one was a shortie, but a goodie by Dr. House. Tony Gentilcore is one
of the most underrated thinkers in our industry. He’s the real deal as a strength coach,
and as someone who trains hard and lives the life. He’s been doing it for a long time, and
he’s influenced a ton of people. Sometimes people will get underrated in regards to how
much they know about the field when they explain things in a very straight forward
manner that anyone can read. You can sound really smart by writing and talking like a
Russian manual, and you very well probably are brilliant, but sometimes nobody can figure
out what you’re talking about. I’m probably guilty of this more often than I would like, but
I’m trying hard not to be. Every time I read Tony’s blog, I come away with something new
that he explained in what seemed to be an effortless, easy way. I’ve done enough reading
and studying and struggling to know that the things he’s talking about are things that he
learned through probably a similar process. He had to have grinded and tried hard for a
long time, because there’s no way he could explain all the incredible things he’s capable of
doing in his writing without sitting with that material for a long time...and applying that
information in the real world. Tony’s an awesome guy. If you don’t know him, try to meet
him. He’s just as great in person as he is in his online personality. Anyways, Tony asked
me to answer some questions in an interview for his blog. Very rarely can anyone really
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get me going to get the inner MASShole to come out (and yeah, the MASS title is an
homage to MASSachusetts, home of the greatest football team ever, the New England
Patriots), but Tony got me to explode in the biggest rant I’ve ever gone on. If you’re
sensitive to swearing, feel free to skip the rest of this chapter and move on to the next one
(and feel free to avoid talking to me in person because I’ve got a feeling we’re going to
struggle with getting along with each other).
I was thrilled when Tony sent me an email saying that he wanted to do an interview with
me. Seriously, getting that opportunity was a big deal for me, and I really want to thank
him for it. So Tony had the following questions for me to answer for the interview…
1: I had the chance to listen to you speak at a Cressey Sports Performance staff in-service
something like two years ago, and I was so impressed not only by your knowledge base,
but your passion as well. Watching and hearing you speak it was hard not to run straight
through a brick wall. I feel MASS is the end-result of both your knowledge and passion.
Can you explain WHY you wrote this program (you know, other than making people hate
life)?
2: Straight up: would you agree most people DO NOT train nearly hard enough?
3: I respect your approach to training and program design because it's simple. Nothing
about MASS says "fancy" or "elaborate," which is why I LOVE the constant references to
Rocky IV. Why is it so hard for many people to understand this concept? That training
doesn't have to advanced or nuanced.
4: I know it's a cliché question - sorry - but can you give your "top 3" reasons why many
people fail to see much progress in the gym? How is MASS going to address them?
5: If people couldn't tell already, you're a straight shooter, so I'm gonna ask your thoughts
on 1) CrossFit, 2) Overtraining (is it a thing?), 3) People who claim "cardio" is a waste of
time, and 4) the movie Creed.
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6: I know you're a big PRI advocate (as am I), and while this is a bit off-topic can you explain
to the readers reading what PRI is all about? I like to simplify and say "it's about getting
people into better positions," but I know you know MUCH more than I. What's the deal?
Naturally, I had answers to these questions…here they are.
1.
The reason I wrote MASS is actually a very straight forward concept. The project
began when I was contacted by an editor from Men's Health who commonly did stories
with myself and a couple other guys at Peak. He said that a new intern just showed up to
start working with him. The kid was a former college cross-country runner, and he was
essentially way too skinny to be working for Men's Health. The editor and a couple other
people thought it would be fun to see how much MASS they could put on him for his 16
week internship, and they were hoping that I could put a program together for him. I got to
meet the intern for a day, do some measures on him, and, "teach" him how to do
everything. He was about 5'8", and slightly less than 130 pounds. He had no previous
strength training experience. I could tell that he was a very driven young man though, and
the cross-country background is one that from my experience comes with a psychological
paradigm of not being afraid to work. Wrestlers and racers are people who often times will
do whatever it takes no matter how difficult. My challenge was that I had to come up with
a plan that would give this person maximum results without hurting him, and this was
especially difficult because of his lack of experience. From my experience, everyone does
everything wrong, regardless of how well versed in training they think they are. I don't feel
comfortable having people do anything unless I'm there to watch and coach them...so I
had to get outside my comfort zone in actually writing this thing. So I designed this thing
to intrinsically reward him with the programming, push him to his physical limits, and
make absolutely sure he wouldn't get hurt. He did phenomenally well on the program. He
gained 19 pounds of lean body MASS in the 16 weeks according to our InBody equipment
at Peak, which is absolutely preposterous when you consider he started off in the 120s. At
this point in time, Men's Health was going to do a big story on Peak, because Peak was
getting ready to move into a 25,000 sqft futuristic palace gym in Manhattan. Included in
the story on Peak was going to be the intern story as well, and they were going to do
something like name the program, "Best Program of the Year" or something like that. I
saw this as a golden opportunity to possibly earn some money from this, and I put a book
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together that would go along with this program. So I sat down on a weekend where I had
nothing else to do and I wrote the book. It was a grueling weekend, and I probably looked a
little bit like a bleary eyed Unibomber by the end of it, but the book was done.
Unfortunately the Peak project fell through due to business side logistical complications,
so the Men's Health stories also never materialized, but by that point, MASS was born, and
it has managed to create its own following, and it has steadily sold and continued to make
people both hate and love me in expanding spheres.
2.
I honestly don't know if people don't work hard enough. I think people are just
disorganized with training. When I design training sessions, I think about things like
somebody would if they had to design a factory assembly line to produce at the highest
level of efficiency. I have zero time to waste, I have a valuable commodity that I have to
pump out, and I don't care about your feelings. I time everything. I've never been a huge
fan of technology in the weightroom other than the clock. I'm familiar with different
energy systems, loaded movement types, types of muscular contractions, speed and
agility, movement quality...you know, the endless list of qualities that actually need to be
developed in a performance oriented gym. There are so many qualities that are necessary
for athletes that you need 15 day weeks and 34 hour days to actually do everything you
need to do. You always have to scrap certain concepts and qualities, short time (I can't
have you sitting around for 6 minutes during rest periods to maximize your phosphagen
system's substrate stores), and generally compromise the perfect textbook physiology
development of things...but you blend, mix and match, and do the smartest things you
possibly can to make it look right, and let people feel like they're having a worthwhile
training experience. With MASS, there was only one goal, and it was purely body
composition optimization. I wasn't trying to help people with peaking for a race or a
strength contest, or get ready for the football season, so in reality organizing it was a
breeze...no movement prep, no power production development, no reactive components. It
just comes down to what is the goal, and how do I get to the goal? With body composition
goals involving muscle MASS, it's not that hard...mechanical load, mechanical work, heat,
and acidity...works every time. People are willing to work hard to get there if they want
that goal, and you can explain why those variables are the ticket to that goal. Now you just
have to organize things for people to to do, and give them something they feel like is a
meaningful challenge. That's where the MASS book actually comes into play. It's written in
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a way that explains why taking a certain approach is the correct approach. It explains why
a certain mindset is the right way to carry yourself. It gives you the organization of the
programming, which is very efficient, and basically guaranteed to change your body
composition. It gives you guidance, direction, and order. It will also motivate you, and the
program itself will motivate you, because you have to keep trying to beat yourself, and if
you actually manage to do so, you will feel rewarded. I don't think people are unwilling to
work hard. Everybody who has done this program has worked hard and loved it. People
just haven't put themselves into the right situations or environments to be able to
appropriately work hard in a very directed manner.
3.
This is a great question. I think I could answer this in a million different ways, but
I'm going to stick with one thread here. Our industry is generally full of people who were
failed athletes...but specifically failed athletes who were incredibly driven, tried hard, and
were willing to do whatever they had to do to make it. Coaches are probably people who
when they were athletes were the people that their coaches loved...because they were the
scrappy athlete, the kid who studied the game...and they were rewarded for this behavior
with the praise, attention, and approval of the coach...all of this creates a cycle. The people
who fit into this failed athlete/future coach pedigree are routinely the people who believe
that if they just did this, "one thing" differently, then it would have been all different. We
are a population of people who are always looking for the secret ingredient...it's this new
thing where you press on weird spots and the person moves like a baby, and now they can
magically move better forever...wrong...it's this new thing where you find and feel your left
pterygoid, and now you can throw a baseball 5 mph faster...wrong...it's this new thing
where you touch these lights on a board that light up randomly, and you can save any
shot from any direction as a goalie...wrong. The dirty secret is that consistency, habit,
intelligence, and managing the big picture is the only thing that has ever and will ever
matter.
When I think of improving performance, I'm always trying to improve biomechanics and
fitness, because the two compliment each other. Biomechanics is this positional,
mechanical, psycho-social, sensory, contextual, and environmental monster of inputs and
outputs that the smartest people in our field spend their entire waking hours and lives
trying to wrap their mind around to figure out. And then you hear some assclown trainer
spit the dumbest shit imaginable about how fucking ankle band lateral walks and
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spreading the knees are going to be the magic bullet fix for some jumbo shrimp looking
140 pound 15 year old bag of dicks that can't do a fucking pull-up and runs a mile in 12
minutes. That's the kind of shit that makes me want to tombstone piledrive somebody
into that pit of needles from the Saw movie franchise.
All day in NYC I see trainers taking fat women and having them do endless stupid
movement prep drills with them and overhead squatting them with dowels. Maybe this fat
woman can't move because her gut is in the way. Maybe she just needs to do something
she can't fuck up, like the most basic hip hinge possible...and oh by the way a bench press
is a good fucking exercise. From what I can tell, almost everybody in our industry sucks at
movement...and we try to do seriously fancy shit that we fuck up left and right. Maybe
your cocky trainer ass should stick to basics. If you suck at it, do you really think your
dumbass motor moron client is going to have a fucking chance? Hell no dummy. That
person needs to sweat and do basics, and feel like they actually accomplished something.
Give that person some damn pride, and let them work hard in a way where they won't hurt
themselves. Christ, I could go on all day on this one, and you finally got me swearing...this
one did it.
No, trainer/strength coach, you never were going to make it in the sport you loved. The
cream always rises to the top. No, you're never going to be an elite weightlifter unless you
started somewhere around 10...but feel free to destroy your joints in your pursuit of this
goal. No handstands are not going to improve anything other than your ability to do a
shitty handstand because you didn't start gymnastics when you were 8 years old. Shut
your mouth, do basic lifts, sprint, do agility drills, and probably some basic cardio, and
guess what you'll probably stop being as fat, weak, and hurt as you are right now. Fuck.
4.
Top 3 reasons why people go nowhere in the gym. 1. People pick the wrong
exercises for their goals. If your goal is to change body composition, you need to do as
much mechanical work with load as possible. Mechanical work is the result of force times
distance. Do not pick low force exercises with small excursions built into the movement.
The right exercises are hinges, squats, split squats, presses, and pulls. I'm not against
direct arm and calf work, but that's the spices you sprinkle on at the end of cooking a dish.
2.People pick the wrong sets and reps schemes. Most People are weak and unimpressive.
If I do a 5 rep set of bench press with such people, they might be using 145...but then Itake
5 or 10 pounds away and they do it for 20. There's no rhyme or reason to most
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people...their muscles aren't working synchronously, they're more psychology cases than
physiology cases. They're going to build more strength doing 15 reps with slightly less
weight compared to 5 reps with slightly more. People need practice and volume.
Everybody thinks they're a damn international weightlifter who needs Prilepin's table
applied to all their programming. Do more mechanical work...push that variable and you'll
be amazed at what happens. 3. People don't time their rest. Easily the most powerful
adjustment I've ever made. It's so simple and so powerful. Nobody is accountable, and
perception of time is something that nobody experiences accurately while exercising. If
you're not timing things, you are wasting a ton of time, guaranteed.
MASS addresses all of these factors. You're going to deadlift, squat, press, and pull your
face off. Everything is timed. Everybody sees crazy results.
5.
Oh fuck me, you brought up the C word. Crossfit is everything and it is nothing. It's
smart and completely moronic. It's a testing ground and it's wasting our time because
some things are already known. It's impressive and it's a disgrace. It's a bunch of athletes
on drugs who don't like to address that issue. It's the best community creating concept
that the world of fitness has ever seen. It's amorphous and evolving constantly. Crossfit is
cool and actually does change people's bodies because people work hard. Crossfit injures
the shit out of people. Crossfit is the most brilliant business cult of all time. Crossfitters
are comic and tragic figures who try to pretend that they're somehow different from all
others who exercise. Elite Crossfitters are unbelievably impressive...fucking freaks...can't
even imagine being able to do what they can do. Crossfit is a great outlet for competitive
athletes, military personnel, and other people accustomed to using their body extensively
when they transition into regular American society. Crossfit is a terrible idea for
competitive athletes to use as their offseason training regime. Some Crossfit workouts
are incredibly challenging, satisfying, and artistically put together...I love the Murph
workout. Crossfit gyms are loaded up with people who definitely lie about how many reps
they did, use shitty technique, go through minimal range of motion when they can get
away with it, just so they can post a time that looks incredible. Crossfit has managed to
convince the women who do it that it's okay to lift heavy...for that they should get the
Nobel Prize of something or other. Crossfit has also created a culture where the women
show up to workout in high socks, booty shorts, and sports bras...thank you Crossfit, high
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fucking five for that one. Fuck you for bringing up Crossfit. It's impossible to answer that
question.
Overtraining is a thing for sure. You can have the best biomechanics, lifestyle, nutrition,
and genetics, etc and you can still train yourself into the ground. Most people will bury
themselves more with lifestyle, sleep, stress, and shitty food compared to excess
mechanical work though. The best way to become overtrained is to drastically alter your
current physical activity levels. The guy who I still base more of my training on than
anyone else is Charlie Francis through his writing. That was a huge thing he emphasized,
was not switching anything up too drastically at any point in time. Novelty and drastic
volume changes are incredibly disruptive to the organism. You need smooth transitions
between blocks that are almost completely imperceptible to the athlete. This is where I
think people jack themselves up. You need to be on a smart long-term program, and that
program needs to be consistent, and use things like progressive overload and other shit
that makes sense and has been around forever. The closest thing we can say overtraining
probably is, is a chronically elevated glucocorticoid level in the athlete, which is indicative
of excess stress. Read Sapolsky for all the reasons why this might happen, but
unpredictability is enormous for that. People need rhythms in their life. People are capable
of handling enormous volumes of exercise, but they need to build up to it gradually, it
needs to have become habitual in the life, and it needs to be fairly regular and predictable.
People who don't like cardio are usually fat lifters or psychotic aesthetic athletes. In both
cases they're stupid, and aggravating, and unathletic. In both cases they also like wearing
t-shirts with sarcastic anti-cardio memes printed on them that 0.5% of the general public
understands. You can get stupid lean and look amazing and do no cardio...plenty of people
have done that...it's all diet and loading. Cardio will keep you healthy and be a huge key in
injury prevention for the long term. Cardio will also keep you feeling good. Aerobic fitness
is so good for you brain, and your mood. Some people seem to get off on being miserable. I
think I've been that way before, but there's no prizes for walking around being a martyr all
the time. People always miss the point of things and this is a topic that is classic for that.
For some reason, I have the voices from the, "Men on Film" In Living Color skit in my head
right now...Creed...hated it. I wouldn't go so far as to say I hated Creed, but it did nothing
67
for me. It was a sort of recycled Rocky one remix plot line. The love interest added nothing
to the movie and took away from some of the early momentum that the beginning of the
movie was generating. If Rocky actually did have cancer, his whole body would have
spontaneously exploded from the enormousness of the tumors that would have been
growing from the 40 years of extreme anabolics abuse and pasta consumption. I was
rooting for Creed to lose simply because he was using the altitude mask in his
training...come on, train low, live high...old news...and you look like a moron. Overall in the
Rocky movie power index, it goes like this...
1.
Rocky
2.
Rocky III
3.
Rocky IV
4.
Rocky II
5.
Rocky V (I'm like the one person on Earth who actually like this one apparently)
6.
Rocky Balboa
7.
Creed
6. PRI is all about measuring the range of motion of the joints, asking people what
muscles they feel working in specific movement tests, and then using logical detective
work to figure out what the rate limiting factor is for the person being unable to do certain
movements, experiencing chronic pain, or repeating injuries to a part of their body. Within
this design, objective tests are used as frequently as possible, and results often times fit
into stereotypical predictable patterns. There is an appreciation for the fundamental and
inherent asymmetries present within the human organism at the neurological, respiratory,
cardiovascular, vestibular, and many other organ system level of the body. Without these
asymmetries we are unable to function as creatures on this planet; however, with these
asymmetries, particularly within the frameworks of the lifestyles and behaviors of modern
society, we often times rely on existing in certain positions excessively as we fail to shift,
move, and move with sufficient variability in our day to day lives. When people become
excessively patterned, overpoweringly creatures of habitual behavior that lacks
differentiation, they're going to need help in many parts of their life, including the
biomechanical sphere. In such cases, the practitioner begins unraveling that person's life
and beginning the process of making that person become aware of their incompetencies.
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Perhaps you start with the fact that the left hamstring is incompetent in sagittal
components of typical stance phase mechanics within the gait cycle; however, this is
typically just scratching the surface. As a professional who resides on the movement and
fitness side of things, you try to stick to realms purely related to the unconscious
incompetencies associated with biomechanics, but with a lot of people, you quickly see
that it is the psychology, life decisions, and stressors that are the driver of their pattern,
position, and problems. You stay within your scope of practice as a professional, and you
make the person aware of the fewest number of their unconscious incompetencies
possible, because the human brain is only capable of processing so much as a certain
point in time. You attempt to help that person develop awareness of their unconscious
incompetencies, do drills that transition them to conscious competencies, test them to
see if the drills are resulting in neuroplastic modification of their nervous system, and
hope that you can transition the person to unconscious competency for the area that you
have chosen to intervene on. PRI is an integrated discipline that blends the mechanical
findings of podiatry, dentistry, optometry, audiology, and physical therapy into a holistic
approach. Within the frameworks of Ron Hruska's brain child, appreciation is given to
behavioral psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and sociology as well, because
everything matters, and the truth is often layered, complex, mysterious, shrouded in
shadows, and not for the faint of heart who only skims the surface of things.
69
CHAPTER 5
The
Developmental Day
70
I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots, and Your Motorcycle
When I attended the Windows of Trainability seminar put on by Val Nsedkin
and Roman Fomin, Val explained the concept of the developmental day. The
developmental day is a workout used to create a hormonal response inside the body. You
do the developmental day as the first training day of the week. The major anabolic
hormones that get released because of the developmental day stay circulating in the body
at an elevated rate for 72 hours. Within that 72 hour window, you should be doing other
kinds of workouts. These other kinds of workouts should be focusing on specific qualities,
such as muscular strength, power, aerobic fitness, etc. If you do an aerobic workout, you
would expect there to be structural adaptation responses to this kind of training, such as
an increase in the number of red blood cells or increased capillarization in the working
tissues. These structural adaptations occur due to protein synthesis responses in the
body. The point of the developmental day is to spike levels of hormones. The point of the
hormones is to speed up the protein synthesis processes.
You could think of the developmental day as being like a steroid shot. I take my shot at
the beginning of the week. After that, I practice my sport and I do work that is specific to
the athletic goals that I am trying to work on. Regardless of what I am trying to get better
at, the steroid shot should help me. The best illustration of this concept is probably within
Major League Baseball. People can say whatever they want about how steroids don’t help
somebody put a bat on a ball, but I think the statistics say another story. I don’t think I
even need to dig up numbers and scrutinize things too closely, but I do want to show a
couple of images and a couple of graphs to display the power of steroids in sports.
71
jŒƆ&ƇƇƆƅƐ”Ƈ6”Əƌ”•Ɔ
L“ƏƊLƅ1ƓƈƏƆdƐ“Ɛ
72
73
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Those last two images demonstrated the drop off in performance in some of the
track and field events from the 2004 Olympic games in Athens. Maybe you remember this
time period. This is when the BALCO scandal broke. Essentially, what happened with
BALCO is that a rival lab company got their hands on some samples of the, “Cream” and
the “Clear”, which were the signature BALCO designer steroid drugs. They mailed these
samples to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) with an explanation of what
compounds were in these substances. Once this information got to WADA, they were able
to detect the designer BALCO drugs in the samples coming from the athletes who were
working with BALCO. What took place after this is that most athletes got off the drugs so
they wouldn’t test positive, while others got busted. Then we got ourselves a, “clean”
Olympic games, and for the first time essentially no world records were broken in track
and field at the Olympics. In fact almost every winning performance fell short of previous
world records. This never happens at the Olympics. To get to the point very quickly, drugs
clearly work. They work better than anything else, and they have for a long time. The
question amongst exercise science people has always been, can we mimic the effects of
drugs through training?
I’m going to try to cut through all the science and do my best to give you the
straight dope here. The concepts of raising hormone levels through training protocols and
receiving a 72 hour window of increased hormone levels may be wrong. Real deal
researchers like Brad Schoenfeld are basically telling us that when you workout super
hard with a developmental day type workout, that you spike certain hormones in the
blood acutely, but then these hormones return back to baseline levels very quickly (within
an hour or so). What this means is that these miserable bouts of exercise are inducing a
stress response, and the body responds as it would to any stress response…elevate
cortisol, elevate catecholamines, elevate growth hormone, and if you’re a male and you’re
feeling pretty successful and aggressive, elevate testosterone…but then you should
expect to see those hormones return back to a baseline level pretty quickly. These
hormones are not going to remain elevated in the system for 72 hours like they would
with a steroid shot. So maybe a lot of the information that I shared with you in the
previous chapter needs to be called into question.
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The thing that we do know though is that if you train hard, such as you would with
a developmental day, protein synthesis will remain elevated for 72 hours post workout. I
think it’s fair to say that we don’t really know why this protein synthesis response stays
elevated, because it doesn’t seem to be mediated by hormones. I’m personally not ready
to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that workouts that are associated with
enormous hormone responses are associated with enhancement of adaptation of the
organism. The hormones may not be driving the show, but the acute levels of hormones
resulting from these workouts may be good indicators that you did what you needed to do
in order to create the right environment to make yourself a more adaptable animal. Don’t
get bent out of shape because the mechanisms of how things work get called into
question by scientists. We are often wrong about the way things work...that doesn’t mean
that the thing doesn’t work. This program is still based on a very unique, periodized model
that I will explain in more detail later. This program is still constructed with a progressive
system underlying the thought process. You’re going to be exposed to a boatload of
thought through progressive volume. You’ll grow tissue and improve in fitness
dramatically regardless of whether the underlying reason is because of hormone
concentrations, receptor sensitivity, environmental signals outside the endocrine affecting
the nucleus, ribosome, or some other concept that we haven’t even begun to fathom
directing the train towards Gainsville.
So I gave you a boatload of science and a bunch of analogies for what stress is all
about in the previous chapter. You’re probably tired of hearing about the rationale…you
get it, so let’s get to it. Developmental days are meant to smash you right in the mouth
and make you question your sanity and my sanity. MASS was developmental day after
developmental day. From my interpretation of what Val was talking about in his seminar,
he said that you can train people this way, and they’ll obviously make adaptations, and
you can see performance results improve, but you may be putting more stress on the
system that the system can take in the long run. In fact, you may be killing yourself. Elite
athletes seem to die younger than sedentary people. The cost of the extreme physiological
adaptations seems to be excessive. Just because you can do it and see performance
increase, should you do this to yourself? Is there another way? Val indicated that there is
another way, and it starts with limiting developmental days to at most twice a week, and
it seems to work best at 1.5 times per week. So we’re basically going to follow that format
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in MASS 2. You might be asking yourself, how can I do 1.5 developmental days per week. I
asked the same thing, and the answer is that you drop the hammer early in the week and
go full bore developmental day. Later in the week, you do the same workout, but with 50%
volume. We’re going to use this approach, and you’re going to learn about something
called, “The Cajun” that fits in with the insane mentality of the original MASS program, but
still respects the recommended upper limit on developmental days concept.
So we’re going to have these developmental days in MASS 2, and if you did MASS,
you’re already familiar with how these feel. MASS 2 will feature some of the same
sessions that you did in MASS. There’s no way I could throw out the 30:30 or the 20:40…
they’re such good friends of ours and they’ll always be welcome to come to the party.
Don’t fret though, you’re going to meet some new friends in MASS 2 as well, and they’re so
much fun to hang out with…you’ll love them. I can’t wait for you to do these
developmental days…I mean that’s what you came for, and they’ll deliver.
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CHAPTER 6
The
Stimulatory Day
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Come With Me If You Want to Live
There’s nothing wrong with greasing the gears on an engine when you’re
making that baby do some serious work and it’s running hot quite often. The
developmental days are the show, but sometimes you need to prepare the system to be
able to step up at the highest levels on the days that matter. The stim days are meant to
prepare you for truly important days. The concept of the stim day is something else I got
from Val during his seminar, and the more I’ve played around with them, the more I like
them, and the more I’ve put my own spin on them. In my interpretation I see these days as
ones where I turn on some critical systems in the body (cardiorespiratory, neuromuscular,
energy systems), but I don’t drop the hammer on these systems and fatigue them to a
high level. When you do these workouts, you’ll be doing a little of everything, but nothing
to its physiological limit.
Something that I want you to consider as you’re doing all of these different kinds of
training sessions is that I want you to use an approach that is progressive. In my most
honest opinion, I kind of think that program design is overrated (which is kind of a crazy
thing to say in a program design book). In the field of strength and conditioning, we’re
always debating between what’s better, conjugate or concurrent periodization, linear or
undulating, long to short or short to long, front squat vs back squat, unilateral vs bilateral,
etc. etc. I really don’t think a lot of those things matter that much. What I do think matters
is that you set up a situation where you can make progress at what you’re doing. Read the
book Sapiens because the book is absolutely incredible. The book talks about some of the
differences between the modern world and the old world. In the old world people didn’t
think the future was going to be any different than the present. In the modern world we’re
always hoping to get to the future, because we believe that the future will be better than
the present. We live in a time where progress exists. The author of Sapiens says that the
introduction of credit into the economy and the Scientific Revolution were the game
changers in this paradigm, and that their introduction led to growth, technology, and a
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different future. We became believers that we could reshape the world we live in. Things
could be bigger, faster, stronger…better. I think the world of exercise is the same. If you
can see yourself improving, you’ll become a believer in progress, and you’ll buy in to the
process. Progress is intoxicating. Progress is addicting. Progress is the show. We’re going
one way, baby, and that way is up. You’re going to start somewhere when you start this
program, but you need to keep moving forward. The stim days are going to be no different.
When you’re doing these stim days I don’t want you to be absolutely killing
yourself. I especially don’t want you to be absolutely killing yourself in the beginning…
you’ve got the developmental days for that. You’re going to see that the stim days are
pretty basic days. You’re going to get real familiar with things like 3 sets of 10 with no
prescribed rest. Start with a weight you can definitely get. When you get it in that first
workout, the next time you go back to that workout, add weight. You don’t need to add a
ton of weight. Add the smallest amount of weight, so that it’s not a big emotional process
of getting this new level of loading. When you come back for the next time, add a little
more weight. See if you can continue to add a little bit of weight throughout this entire
program. You’ll be amazed at how far this will take you…and you’ll hardly even notice the
difference during the process. Progress doesn’t need to be super fancy in the world of
exercise. I don’t need to create an elaborate matrix of 80 million different versions of hip
hinge drills. We can use a trap bar on day one, and we can continue using that trap on the
last day. Progress can be seen in adding weight…simple as that, and probably more
effective.
Stim days will feature some plyos and med ball suggestions in the warm-up. The
lifts will be basic. The assistance work will be basic. The conditioning will be basic. Nobody
is going to raise an eyebrow at you in the gym for what you’re doing in your stim days.
You’ll be saying to yourself, I thought this Davidson guy was known for crazy ass
workouts, what gives? First off, don’t think you know me. Second, if it works, it works. I’m
not trying to put something together because it’s the latest gimmick or because it’s going
to get me more friends on Instaface. I am putting this program together because I want to
do this program, because I want to get stronger and fitter and look better…simple as
that…if it happens to work for you too, cool, but whatever.
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CHAPTER 7
Aerobic /
Alactic Days
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Chill Out, Dickwad
The more correct name for these days is probably oxidative/phosphagenic
days, but whatever, I learned this originally by the name, aerobic/alactic…so that’s what
we’re going with. These days are where you get to feel like an athlete, and you get to go
get it from a strength/power perspective. These days should be fun, but they’re also going
to smoke you, especially if you’re a fast twitch individual. I’ve seen some weak, slow people
do these days and the effect isn’t what I feel when I do these days, but they still receive
benefit, and it’s definitely not a waste of time…so if you’re a fluffy bag of slow twitch
fibers, don’t fret, you can still do these days.
From what I understand about primitive human hunting, the methods we used
seem to fit into the aerobic/alactic concept. We’d hunt in small bands through persistence
methodologies. Typical hunting group sizes for most of our species history was
somewhere around 8 to 15 people. We would chase animals in a pack. The key to
capturing the animal was to keep the animal in sight. The best way to keep the animal in
sight would be to have one person in the group go into a sprint for about 4 to 10 seconds
while the rest jogged. Then the next person would go into a sprint while the person who
just went hard falls back to the end of the pack. When I was playing sports as a kid, we
called these, “Indian runs”, which is probably racist and politically incorrect now, but if
you’re familiar with doing those and you called them the same name, you know what I’m
talking about.
Other animals that humans were fond of eating were larger, much stronger, and
much faster in bursts compared to humans. We would be no match for these animals in a
face to face fight. We came up with persistence hunting and scavenging as a way around
our limitations. Interestingly, these approaches made us the most dangerous predator
that has ever trod on the Earth’s crust. We’d use the running approach described in the
previous paragraph to keep the animal in eyesight. As we got closer to the animal, we’d
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throw objects like rocks and spears at it to weaken it. We also relied on our ability to
dissipate heat through exposed skin and sweating to prevent from overheating. Panting
and fur are fairly ineffective heat dissipation methods compared to what homo sapiens
had at their disposal. We would wear down other animals through a war of attrition and
heat loss mechanisms to win. What’s incredibly interesting about the persistence hunting
methods is that they energetically match many of the most popular sports that we play in
modern society.
Sports like soccer and basketball are perfect examples of aerobic/alactic sports.
You’re typically always moving, but it could be a jog or a walk. In fact you spend the
majority of the time walking or jogging, and you need a good aerobic system to power you
through those elements. Then there are brief moments where you have to make an
attacking move, and go all out. These attack moments are critical moments. You need to
make sure you’re fit enough to be able to have the reserves to go at that moment’s notice,
often at unpredictable points. A lot of teams will try to wear you down so that you don’t
have that burst left when you would really need it. They’ll wear you down through the
aerobic element of the game. If I make you chase me around all game, and it’s at a pace
that is aerobic for me, but is beyond what is aerobic for you, you’re going to be relying on
non-oxidative processes to keep up with me. My non-oxidative processes are fresh and
full…yours have been drained. I make my attack and burst towards the goal…your legs are
heavy and your brain is exhausted…I score and you lose.
Repeatability is a big deal in sports. You win one time, and that’s cool. Show me you
can do it again though, because that’s what defines the great ones. The great ones in
sports did it today, and they’re going to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the
day after that, and ten years from now. If you’re a flash in the pan, nobody is going to
remember you down the road. Staying power is the world of the great ones. Consistency is
what defines the legends. Can you run as fast on third and ten in the fourth quarter as
you can on first down in the first quarter? Is your fast ball still humming in at 95 in the 9th
inning when you’re 125 pitches deep? If you want to get jacked, you’re going to have to lift
a lot of weights, and you’re going to have to do it day after day after day. I’m going to need
you to be able to perform on set 6 just like you were able to perform in set 1. If you have a
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robust aerobic system, you’re going to be able to hold up to the test of time, and you’re
going to be able to repeat performances in the same session over and over.
The key with this is the ability to bounce back and forth between the phosphagen
system and the oxidative system, and generally skip over the glycolytic system. I’m not
anti-glycolysis, and, in fact, in the coming paragraphs, I’m going to tell you about what I
think people are not understanding with the energy systems, particularly glycolysis, but
generally speaking, I want you to be able to float like a butterfly (aerobic), and sting like a
bee (phosphagenic), and do this over and over and over again. If you start relying on
glycolysis, you’ll sink like a rock and flail like a piss drunk sailor. You could be as big as King
Kong, but if you’ve overly relied on glycolytic processes, you’re going to be as useless as a
soup sandwich when it’s time to go hard again. So it’s time to understand a little bit more
about energy systems, because the point of these aerobic/alactic days is to work very
specifically within the confines of energy system development. What better way to
understand energy systems than to start with the underlying point of what energy
systems are trying to do?
The most important thing for detectives trying to solve a case is to understand the
motive of potential suspects. Training the energy systems of an athlete is one of the most
important jobs of the strength and conditioning professional. To solve this case, you must
understand the motive force behind why the energy systems are present in the body. The
purpose of the energy systems is to deal with the outcome of the hydrolysis reaction of
ATP. Stated in another way, the purpose of the energy systems is to rephosphorylate ATP
and to deal with the threat of hydrogen and heat that cellular and mechanical work
imposes upon the organism. Stated in another way, the purpose of the energy systems is
to allow you to perform sufficient levels of ATP hydrolysis to power your organism’s need
to engage in behaviors in specific environmental circumstances. If you do not understand
this underlying purpose and the ways in which this plays out in the body, then you do not
truly understand energy system training.
We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is that I can’t stand it when people say
that energy systems create energy. Another one is any time I hear anyone say anything
about lactic acid. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy is transferred from
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one state to another inside the body. Lactic acid does not exist inside the human body.
Lactic acid never has existed inside the human body. Lactic acid never will exist inside the
human body. These statements may sound like condescending semantical remarks made
by an exercise science nerd; however, I do not think they are, and I think that failing to
address these concerns will continue to lead to erroneous thought processes in trying to
develop energy system training. I think these pet peeve concepts of mine are related to
the two biggest missing links in our field’s current view of developing the energy systems,
which are both fundamentally tied with failure to appreciate the two-tiered purpose of the
energy systems.
We probably all know about the concept of ATP being the energy currency of the
body. The ability to restock your supply of ATP is one of the two purposes of the energy
systems. This is the most commonly discussed factor in regards to the science of energy
systems, and I will surely address this here, but first, I would like to discuss the second
energy system purpose, threat deterrence. Hydrogen is the most abundant material in the
universe. 80% of the known universe is hydrogen. Movement of hydrogen is what drives
the universe. When viewing the internal universe of the human, hydrogen is both the
driver of life and something that can kill you quickly if left unchecked. Entropy is the
direction of the universe. The universe is expanding and the energy found within the
universe is headed more and more towards a chaotic state. Heat is the expression of
entropy most prominently displayed by life forms. Try living as a mammal without heating
yourself though. Hydrogen load and heat load are perhaps the two most fundamental
things that the human body has to manage. If not kept within a careful window of
appropriate levels, you will surely die. We have a variety of measures and systems that we
use to regulate hydrogen and heat, and the energy systems are a powerful one when it
comes to the hydrogen threat.
There is no lactic acid inside your body, therefore it is not a threat. Lactate
production is an outlet for dealing with an acid threat, and is therefore not a threat (it’s a
strategy). Hydrogen is real, and very present inside your body. Hydrogen is a threat, and
hydrogen must be accounted for. Where does this hydrogen come from though? Hydrogen
is a bi-product of the hydrolysis of ATP. Every time I do anything inside my body, I need to
power that action via the hydrolysis of ATP. The potential energy that will power my bodily
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actions is found in the bonds between the phosphates making up the ATP molecule. I
must break these bonds to release energy from a bound/potential state to make it
available as free energy to perform work. The body uses a hydrolysis reaction to break
these bonds. Hydrolysis reactions are those that require water to be present. When ATP
combines with water in the presence of the enzyme ATPase, the bond between the
second and third phosphate is broken, and stored energy is released. The reaction looks
like this:
ATP + H2O (in the presence of ATPase) → ADP + P + Free energy + Hydrogen + Heat
We did this to gain the release of free energy. Free energy release is the purpose of the
hydrolysis of ATP. The energy systems are in the body to deal with the outcomes of the
hydrolysis of ATP.
The energy systems put ATP back together again after it is broken down. We have
three strategies of putting ATP back together again, a phosphagenic one, a glycolytic one,
and an oxidative one. The phosphagenic and glycolytic strategies are the most primitive,
and took place in cellular life forms prior to the evolutionary step of mitochondria creating
a mutually symbiotic relationship with cellular organisms by moving into the cells of other
creatures. The phosphagenic energy system can rephosphorylate a singular ATP through
its one enzymatic step, but it cannot do anything to reduce hydrogen or heat levels inside
the body. Here is the primary reaction used by the phosphagen system:
ADP + CP (in the presence of Creatine Phosphate) → ATP + Creatine
The phosphagenic energy system has low cost associated with it, since it does not cost
any ATP to run the system. This lack of cost cannot be said about the glycolytic system.
The glycolytic energy system has the ability to rephosphorylate 4 ATP (you receive a net of
2 ATP, because you have to spend 2 ATP to power the glycolytic machinery) through 10
enzymatic steps. Glycolysis can also directly take two hydrogen ions out of circulation. To
view the ATP rephosphorylation and hydrogen reduction capacity of glycolysis, the
following image is helpful (note that the hydrogen is reduced at step 6, where NAD
combines with a hydrogen).
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87
The non-oxidative energy systems pale in comparison to the ability of the oxidative
energy system to rephosphorylate ATP and reduce the hydrogen threat inside the body.
One of the interesting things about the oxidative system is that it actually powers itself
through the motion of hydrogen.
The oxidative energy system utilizes the Krebs cycle and the Electron Transport
Chain (ETC) to rephosphorylate ATP and to reduce the hydrogen threat inside the body.
Very little ATP rephosphorylation takes place within the Krebs cycle; however, the
products of the Krebs cycle power the ATP rephosphorylation machinery of the ETC. The
primary product of the Krebs cycle that powers the ETC to rephosphorylate ATP is NADH
and FADH2. Every NADH that enters the ETC allows the ETC to rephosphorylate 3 ATP, and
every FADH2 allows the ETC to rephosphorylate 2 ATP. The Krebs cycle churns out 8 NADH
and 2 FADH2 molecules every time carbohydrates are the substrate being utilized to
power the energy systems (note fats have the potential for many more NADH and FADH2
molecules). The following diagram depicts the NADH and FADH2 synthesizing steps of the
Krebs cycle (note that the Krebs cycle spins twice when carbohydrate is the substrate):
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It is fair to say that when it comes to the power of the oxidative energy system, the
ability to shuttle NAD/NADH back and forth between the Krebs cycle and the ETC is the
show. If you have a super powered ability to load hydrogen onto NAD (which converts it
into NADH), move NADH to the ETC, unload the hydrogen from NADH at the ETC (which
converts it into NAD), and then return that NAD to Krebs to repeat the procedure, you will
have a monster aerobic system. It is probably also fair to say that NADH is the show
inside the show, and the thing that nobody is talking about. Finally, it is tremendously fair
to say that the purpose of the Krebs cycle is not to rephosphorylate ATP directly, but to
power the reduction reaction that results in NADH, which powers the ETC.
The ETC is the engine that is the big bang in the rephosphorylation of ATP. The ETC
is also the best strategy for reducing (both literally and figuratively if you appreciate redox
humor) the hydrogen threat. The ETC is a multi-enzymatic intra-mitochondrial machine
that has the potential to rephosphorylate 28 ATP from the products of the Krebs cycle
when carbohydrate is used as the substrate (8 NADH at 3 ATP per molecule, and 2 FADH2
at 2 ATP per molecule). One of the first enzymes present in the ETC is one called NADH
dehydrogenase. The purpose of a dehydrogenase enzyme is to remove a hydrogen ion
from a molecule. NADH dehydrogenase cleaves the hydrogen away from NADH, which
oxidizes the molecule and returns it to its state as NAD. When NADH is oxidized, the
hydrogen ion is then shuttled outward from the inner mitochondrial membrane. To help
understand this process, see the following picture:
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In examining this picture, let’s start at the left. You see NADH being converted to
NAD. This is taking place due to the activity of NADH dehydrogenase. You see the
hydrogen ion being sent upwards into the space between the inner and outer
mitochondrial membranes. Let’s skip over the activity in the middle of the graph to
simplify this process. The hydrogen ion that was removed from NADH moves from the left
to the right of the picture until it reaches the final enzyme on the right hand side. The
most rightward enzyme is ATP synthase. As you can see in the picture, hydrogen moves
downward through ATP synthase. The kinetic energy of hydrogen moving through the ATP
synthase enzyme is what powers the enzyme to rephosphorylate ATP. ATP synthase is
the location where all of the ATP rephosphorylation takes place inside the ETC. From an
ATP rephosphorylation standpoint, let’s say that ATP synthase is the show. While giving
the credit to ATP synthase for the product that we’re looking for, let’s not forget that it is
hydrogen that powers this enzyme’s activity. As I said before, in the internal universe of
the human, it is hydrogen that drives life.
While hydrogen drives life inside the human, unchecked, overabundant hydrogen
will also kill you very quickly. The hydrogen that powered ATP synthase must be
accounted for once it has given this enzyme its motive force for ATP rephosphorylation
purposes. Have you ever wondered why the oxidative energy system is named as such?
The answer is simple. Oxygen must be present for the system to run. The location of
oxygen in this process is inside the inner mitochondrial matrix, specifically right below ATP
synthase. When the hydrogen passes through the ATP synthase enzyme, oxygen is sitting
there ready to receive it. If I combine two hydrogen with an oxygen, I get water.
Synthesizing water is the most effective and least harmful strategy that organisms have
adopted for dealing with the potential threat of hydrogen. When your body is able to
power its behaviors via an electron transport strategy, the organism is operating in the
least costly, most highly efficient manner possible, with the least amount of threat
presented. When oxygen supply inside the mitochondria is not sufficient to deal with the
amount of hydrogen present inside the mitochondria, or the shuttling of NAD/NADH to
and from the Krebs cycle/ETC is not robust enough or fast enough to move hydrogen
through the oxidative pathways, the body is forced to go to a check-down option and deal
with hydrogen another way. This other way is via the creation of lactate.
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Lactate is created when pyruvate binds to two hydrogen ions. Pyruvate is the
product of glycolysis. To see pyruvate, let’s revisit our glycolysis diagram.
When it comes to glycolysis, things can be summarized into the following
statement: one, glucose enters; two, pyruvates leave. There is no aerobic or anaerobic
glycolysis. There is only glycolysis where a glucose comes and two pyruvate leave through
ten enzymatic steps. The fate of pyruvate is what determines whether we operate with an
oxidative or non-oxidative strategy. The hydrogen load inside the cell determines the fate
of pyruvate. If the Krebs/ETC processes can handle the hydrogen load, things run
smoothly. If Krebs and ETC are unable to handle the hydrogen coming from a specific rate
of ATP hydrolysis, then we must call on the backup system, which is the synthesis of
lactate. Lactate equals pyruvate plus two hydrogen. It is as simple as that. View the
following image to appreciate this concept:
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G“ƅƐ“ƐƆ#ƆŒƕƗƏ”‹Ɔ•“Ɔ
^ƕƏƑƒ“ƐƆ
G“ƅƐ“ƐƆ
In viewing the above image, focus on the bottom. Pyruvate is on the left, lactate is
on the right. Look at the molecular makeup of the two substances. The only difference
between pyruvate and lactate is that a singular bond attaches one hydrogen ion on the
left side of the structure, and another hydrogen is bound to oxygen on the right side of the
structure. Lactate is a fantastic method of removing two hydrogen ions from existing in a
free state. The purpose of the lactate system is to act as an alternative strategy for
dealing with hydrogen load during times of extreme behaviors. Lactate is your checkdown receiver on a hot read.
As the great Mike Cantrell likes to say at PRI courses, it’s cool that the aspirin
works, but it’s cooler to know how it works. It’s cool to know that the program design
approaches of Joel Jameison work. It’s cooler to know what’s happening inside the system
that drive the reasons behind why they work. If you do not know why things work, you do
not have a good BS detector. You will fall for stupid training concepts and you will be a
garbage strength coach. If you want to be a beast in the majority of American sports, you
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need quality energy system development coached in the proper sequence of development.
This may not be the fastest road to success, but it will be the road to the highest success
with the least amount of detrimental stress put on your organism’s homeostatic control
systems. We live in an age of information and accountability. If you are stupid, you are
easily replaceable. Be an intellectual savage who does not accept ordinary, mundane, or
low level things in your life.
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CHAPTER 8
Phase 1
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I’m Back
Did you really think the 30/30 was going anywhere? I hope not, because if
you thought I was going to abandon something that clearly works wonders, then you
definitely don’t know me very well. Phase 1 of MASS 2 will feature a solid dose of the
30/30, but there will be a twist to the program design here. Not all training days will be
the same. Day 1 of the program will be the 30/30. The hammer from day 1 of MASS will be
back, and it will punch you in the face with brass knuckles. The 30/30 is considered to be a
developmental day within the confines of the MASS 2 system. Day 2 of phase 1 is going to
be an alactic/aerobic training day, and it will borrow heavily from the Triphasic Training
model. Day 3 of phase 1 will be a stim day. Day 4 of phase 1 will be a 50% developmental
day. The 50% developmental day will introduce you to a method that you will come to
know very well in MASS 2…The Cajun.
Day 1: The 30/30
Choose ten exercises. Perform all ten exercises for three rounds in a circuit format.
Go through the circuit three times. You have a 30 second work window and a 30 second
rest window to get to the next exercise. During the 30 second work window, you are trying
to get 15 reps at the exercise. If you complete the 15 reps before the 30 seconds is done,
stop and move on to the next exercise. Your goal is to try to get 15 reps at each exercise
for all three rounds, which would be 450 total repetitions.
I’ve had an opportunity to talk to a lot of people who have done the 30/30, and I’ve
gotten to see where people have committed common errors. My first suggestion is don’t
pick exercises that can’t be counted in reps. Get rid of the sled and the carry within the
30/30. My second suggestion is start with weights lighter than you think is right. Your
estimate of what you’re capable of is probably an over estimation. I want you to actually
get all the reps on this thing. I want you to get all the reps because I want you to be able
to make progress. Get all the reps and then add weight to the 30/30. Be careful with
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adding weight though. If you add 5’s to each side of the bar on the squat that is a 10
pound increase. At 15 reps, that 10 pound increase is a 150 pound rise in mechanical work
for the set. At 3 sets, that’s a 450 pound increase in work. If you add 10 pounds to two
exercises, that’s a 900 pound increase in the protocol. If you raise the weight on every
station, the numerical difference in work is ridiculous. The 30/30 will help you see the
truth behind mechanical work…it’s basically all that matters. The 30/30 is probably one of
the most efficient set ups for maximizing mechanical work within the confines of a typical
gym workout time that has ever been assembled. If you increase mechanical work by over
a thousand pounds from one workout to the next, you will get hammered by it. Don’t pick
too many variations of the squat within the 30/30. One squat is probably enough. Get rid
of the thruster. The thruster is a low level squat and a low level upper body exercise. Pick a
good squat exercise and a few good press exercises and you’ll get a better leg stimulus
and a better upper body stimulus. Last, but not least, get rid of the body weight exercises.
Pick loaded exercises. This is recommended because you want things you can show
progress in. It’s pretty much impossible to progress push-ups in this design. Finish the
30/30 with loaded exercises…then increase load by the absolute smallest amount
possible. Finish the 30/30 again…then increase load by the absolute smallest amount
possible. Keep chasing success by upping the ante a little more. If you have the possibility
of improving and showing progress, you’ll chase it. Don’t chase your tail with push-ups
and pull-ups in this design, because with those exercises, you’ll be staying in the same
place from a mechanical work standpoint.
Here’s my personal recommendation on a great 30/30 lineup that I think serves as
a solid gold standard from an exercise selection and order standpoint.
1.
Deadlift
2.
Seated overhead press
3.
Lat pulldown
4.
Squat
5.
Incline bench press
6.
Bent over row
7.
Rear foot elevated split squat
8.
Rear foot elevated split squat
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9.
Bench press
10.
Seated row
For the most part, think leg followed by 2 upper body exercises (push and pull) as a good
guide post. If you can’t do RFE split squat, do a backwards lunge. If you don’t have access
to equipment like a lat pulldown or a seated row, that’s a shame…do the best you can. In
this case you might have to do some sort of body weight thing, like TRX rows and pull-ups,
but this is not ideal.
Day 2: Alactic/Aerobic - Triphasic Style
Please read Triphasic Training. I think it’s the best book ever written on program
design. What we’re doing here is borrowing one element from Triphasic Training. Buy Cal
Dietz’s book and really do his full program. You will be blown away by the thought that
went into his concept, and I can attest from personal experience doing the program, it will
revolutionize your force production game. What we’re going to be doing on day 2 of phase
1 is the eccentric over 80% concept from Triphasic Training. We’re going to pick one big
lower body exercise and one big upper body exercise. We’re going to load the bar with over
80% of the 1 rep max (1RM), and we’re going to perform 2 repetitions with a 6 second
eccentric (lowering) part of the rep. You’ll lower the bar really slow, and then you’ll
immediately reverse direction and drive the bar up as hard and fast as you possibly can.
After you complete your two repetitions of the heavy exercise, you’ll proceed immediately
into a circuit of explosive activities involving plyometric exercises. The approach we’re
going to use with the combination of the heavy exercise followed by three different
explosive exercises is a version of post activation potentiation (PAP) called, The French
Contrast Method. The French Contrast Method uses a body weight plyometric activity
first, followed by a heavier than body weight plyometric activity second, and third is a
lighter than body weight plyometric activity. An example of what I try to do for this in
phase 1 is 1. Heavy squat for 2 reps. 2. Box jumps for 4 reps. 3. Kettlebell jumps for 4 reps.
4. Long jumps for 4 reps. Generally speaking, you’re going to do 4 reps on all your explosive
movements. Also, while a long jump isn’t technically lighter than body weight, you are not
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jumping directly against gravity…rather you are projecting yourself forward. In my
estimation (and I could be completely wrong, this means that the propulsion is slightly
easier than a vertical jump because there is slightly less of a directly against gravity
demand. Last major logistical point here is that you will be doing 5 rounds of this French
Contrast Method training during your day 2 training days.
You might be asking, what the hell is PAP, and why should I do this? Researchers
have discovered that if you perform an explosive exercise, like a jump or a sprint directly
after performing a heavy exercise featuring high levels of muscular tension and force
production, you tend to see an improvement in the explosive exercise. The mechanism
given for this improvement in the explosive exercise is called post activation potentiation.
The thought behind how this works is as follows. Muscles contract via the sliding filament
theory. The sliding filament theory states that myosin globular heads attach to actin
filaments and perform power stroke. When myosin performs power stroke on actin, it
pulls the actin filaments towards the center of the sarcomere (the functional unit of
muscle tissue at the cellular level). Actin filaments are attached to the lateral borders of
the sarcomere (the Z disc). When you pull the Z discs on either side of a sarcomere
towards the center of the sarcomere via power stroke, the muscle cell shortens at the
cellular level, and we witness this externally as muscular contraction and movement of
joints. The trick to movement is getting myosin to bind to actin. The problem is that
another protein typically sits in the way of the actin binding sites and prevents myosin
from being able to access actin. This protein that blocks the actin binding site is
tropomyosin. I need to move tropomyosin out of the way to move via muscles. Thankfully,
still yet another protein is attached to tropomyosin, and this other protein is capable of
moving tropomyosin out of the way of the actin binding site. This other protein is called
troponin. Troponin will move tropomyosin and allow myosin to access actin, but only if
calcium binds to troponin to initiate the whole process. The key behind the key then
seems to be the presence of calcium inside a muscle cell. When calcium levels reach a
critical point, troponin will be activated to move tropomyosin, which will unveil the binding
site of actin, allowing myosin to create muscular contraction. Theoretically, anything that
increases calcium would expose more and more actin binding sites and force of
contraction would rise.
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How, then, can I increase calcium present in a muscle cell? This is where the heavy
contraction comes into play. If I load you up and make you push against serious
resistance, I will trigger a stress response inside of you. You will call upon the sympathetic
nervous system to help you respond to the threat of having your skeleton crushed or
pulled apart by forces. Your sympathetic nervous system will increase electrical outflow
through your motor neurons to the big pushing and pulling muscles as well as redirecting
blood flow to these same muscles. If I send powerful electrical signals to your large limb
muscles, ultimately the terminal end of the alpha motor neuron will release acetylcholine,
which will travel across the neuromuscular junction and bind to the skeletal muscle cell.
The acetylcholine will cause the muscle cell to open sodium channels, which will cause
sodium to flood into the cell from the extracellular space. When sodium reaches a critical
level inside the muscle cell, an action potential in the cell will be triggered. The action
potential will be an electrical wave of depolarization that will spread across the perimeter
of the cell membrane all around the cell. The electrical wave of depolarization will reach
parts of the cell called T-tubules, which are holes tunnels that burrow down into the
center of the cell. At the end of the T-tubules are large reserve tanks called terminal
cisternae. The terminal cisternae are the store houses for calcium. The wave of
depolarization will cause the calcium to be released from the cisternae, and the calcium
will flow out into the cell and then bind with troponin to set up the sliding filament theory
cascade. If I am lifting heavy weights and remain in high levels of tension for a good
amount of time, this will provide for more time to flood calcium out into the cell. If I can
quickly transition from the heavy loaded exercise to the explosive exercise, I can perform
my jumping and sprinting and throwing under a condition where there is more calcium
present than normal. I have a rare opportunity to get more myosin involved than would
normally be the case. Researchers have shown that this practice seems to work. It’s tricky
because you don’t want to fatigue yourself too much with the loading, but you don’t want
the loading to be too wimpy, because then you don’t get the higher than normal calcium
dose. I think the approach Cal Dietz has found and utilized to be a great way to ensure the
right blend of heavy without crippling fatigue that could decrease explosive output in the
aftermath of the lift.
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So here’s what your phase 1, day 2 protocol it looks like on paper as a protocol…
I.
Movement prep (do whatever the hell you want in truth…just prepare)
II.
Glycolytic warm-up
a.
We used to run 2, 300-yard shuttles with 2 min rest at Springfield
b.
I’ve been having people do some glycolytic rowing in the place where I am
now
i.
Row 150 meters, rest 1 min
ii.
Row 250 meters, rest 90 seconds
iii.
Row 350 meters
There is no prescribed rest between the end of the warm-up and the start of Triphasic.
Collect yourself. Set up your equipment. Start. Take your time, but hurry up.
III.
Triphasic: 5 x 2 @ 80-88% with a 6 second eccentric
1.
Squat or dead (I highly recommend the squat…I think it makes way more
sense here)
a.
Box Jump x 4
b.
Jump w/weight x 4
c.
Long Jump x 4
There is no prescribed rest between sets or between finishing the squat/dead and the
bench. Let your breathing come back to normal…feel completely ready. It should take at
least 2 to 3 minutes to recover between sets and exercises.
2.
Bench or incline bench @ 88% with 6 second eccentric
a.
Pull-up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a lat pulldown or something
else you can do explosively
b.
Plyo-Push Up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a bench
c.
Med Ball Throw x 4…if you’ve got a wall, chest throw, otherwise slam
it into the ground
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There is no prescribed rest between finishing your main lift and starting your assistance.
Put your weights away, and set up what you’re going to do.
IV.
Assistance: 3 x 8…no timing, work at your own pace
a.
Single arm dumbbell row
b.
Step ups
c.
Biceps
d.
Triceps
e.
Delts
Day 3: Stim Day
People are always surprised by how hard Triphasic Training workouts smoke them.
You need a fairly normal (un-MASS like day) training day in your next session. You’ll notice
that almost everything is untimed here. The clock is extra stress. I’m trying to take stress
away. You don’t need to push the pace here. Get good solid hard work sets in on your main
lift. Try to be successful with the weights you choose for your 3 x 15. When you do this
workout in week 2, try to add weight and continue to be successful…keep doing this
through weeks 3 and 4. If you continue adding weight here, before you know it, you’ll be
moving some serious iron on your stim days. You might also notice that the upper body
lift is programmed in before your lower body lift in the main lift section. That is on
purpose. I think that if you do the lower body first, you’ll fatigue your whole system and
your upper body lift will suffer. If you do the upper body lift first, I don’t think there will be
any negative ramifications put onto your lower body lift. The same is not true for the
Triphasic workouts. The Triphasic workouts are more neurological based. I’m trying to
ramp your nervous system up as high as possible in those days, and I don’t think that the
lower body will negatively impact your upper body as much. There has been some
research in exercise science showing that whatever you train first in a workout tends to
improve more than the things that you do after, and I’m generally more concerned with
total body and lower body strength.
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Okay, enough with explanations and rationales…here is your stim day for phase 1:
I.
Movement prep…I don’t care what you do…get yourself ready
II.
Plyo-primer
a.
2 foot lateral pogo (hop back and forth sideways over a line pretty fast) for
45 seconds
b.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
1 foot lateral pogo, 45 seconds each leg
Plyometrics and med-balls x 2 rounds
a.
Box jumps x 8 (jump up, step down…put a bench next to your box)
b.
Med Ball slams x 10
Main Lift: 3 sets of 15…no timing, work at your own pace
1.
Bench Press or Incline Bench
2.
Squat or deadlift (I highly recommend squat)
Assistance Lift: 3 sets of 15…no timing, work at your own pace
A1.
RFE Split Squat or FFE Split Squat
A2.
Dumbbell row or Cable row
Accessory: 3 sets of 15…no timing, work at your own pace
A1.
Curls
A2.
Triceps
A3.
Delts
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Day 4
The fourth training day of phase 1 is your first exposure to, “The Cajun”. The Cajun
is super spicy and will leave you burnt to a blackened crisp…but it’s over quickly. The
beginning of the week started off with the original recipe 30/30, and the end of the week
goes all kinds of extra crispy on your punk ass. The Cajun 30/30 is one round of the 30/30.
Doesn’t sound so bad, right…wrong…real wrong. The stim day should have prepped you
pretty well to have an idea about what kinds of weights you might be able to use for The
Cajun 30/30. Same rules apply to The Cajun as to the regular 30/30. I want you to get 15
reps on everything. If you get 15 this time, then you increase the weight next time. Again,
don’t over estimate yourself too hard. The Cajun has a way of kicking you in the junk very
hard. When you’re done with the Cajun, lay in a puddle for a few (maybe more than a few)
minutes. Eventually drag yourself up off the ground and get some easy cardio in. My
recommendation for easy cardio is uphill treadmill walking. Put the treadmill at 15% incline
and the speed somewhere in the mid 2’s for miles per hour. Individual heart rates vary
quite a bit, but I’d say I want you somewhere between 135 and 165 for this. You should be
somewhere in the 5.5 to 7.5 range for rating of perceived exertion (RPE) for this. I want
you to do 20 minutes of cardio in this range after The Cajun. If you have cardio ADD and
you don’t want to stay only on the treadmill, fine…do a few items. Just keep your heart
rate in the recommended zone for the recommended time.
1.
Movement prep
2.
The Cajun…same exercises as original 30/30, but only 1 round
3.
20 minutes of cardio
For those of you who didn’t read the beginning of the book:
Phase 1 (and all the phases) is a 4 week phase.
Stick with this plan for all 4 weeks. Don’t send me a message asking how long each phase
is like you did with MASS, which will tell me you didn’t read the damn book and you
skipped straight to the workout portion of the show. Read the book. If you don’t, I wish ill
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will upon you while you’re doing the program. I hope your squats are limited by terrible
dorsiflexion and an inability to get into the posterior capsule of your hips. I’ll also know
who you are and I’ll come for you. If you’re not there the first time I seek you out, I’ll be
back.
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CHAPTER 9
Phase 2
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Makes You a More Efficient Killer
You never know when you’ll get a break in life. I’ve definitely had my share.
I’ve had the opportunity to speak at some pretty awesome venues now. I’ve gotten a
chance to speak at a few NSCA State Clinics. I’ve given a talk to the staff at Cressey
Performance. I’ve been able to travel to Costa Rica to speak, and in October of 2017 I’ll
actually go to China to give a series of lectures. I feel like I got my biggest speaking break
when I went to Texas in the winter of 2016. Ben House invited me to come speak to all the
smart people in Austin, TX for a seminar he and Aaron Davis were putting on. If you don’t
know Ben and Aaron, how dare you? I got really lucky a few years ago because I ran into
Ben at the PRI Advanced Integration course. We started following each other’s work after
that, and quite frankly I was blown away by how well he knew the food game and how
well he knew the training game. When Ben asked me to come share what I know with him
I was truly honored. I put together a presentation that I called The Rabbit Hole. The
presentation dealt primarily with the differences in the neurotransmitter profiles of the
left and right hemispheres of the brain, and what sorts of implications that leads to. The
attendees liked it, and people heard that I was pretty good with explaining the
neurotransmitter side of things. If you do a good job and the right people notice it, you get
more opportunities, and you get to meet more incredible people. You never know when
your shot might come along if you keep moving forward and keep saying yes to
opportunities. I’m not the kind of guy who wants a dull life. I want to see the world and
experience lots of different things. I’m hoping that I can influence some people, and that I
get to keep meeting some other amazing people. I feel very lucky for this path so far,
partly because of meeting Ben.
Ben is sort of like the kind of person who doesn’t exist in the modern world. Ben is
an idealist who takes action and lives out his ideals. At the same time, he’s an incredibly
educated scientist who is also a regular dude when you talk to him. He’s a functional
medicine doctor who changes people’s lives through food, lifestyle, and attitude. He’s also
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a bad ass lifter. The guy has crushed MASS twice. It’s a short list of people who have done
MASS twice. Those who I know who have pulled it off are myself, Ben, Teo Ledesma, and
Justin Moore. There may be others of you out there, but that’s all I’m familiar with. Ben
moved from Texas to Costa Rica so he could live in the jungle and truly see if getting out of
the insanity of the modern American world improves your overall well-being as many of
us suspect it would. Since Ben has been down there, he has actually conducted a very
interesting scientific experiment on a bunch of guys who actually lift and are savages.
Included in this group of experimental iron assassins was James Cerbie, the owner of
Rebel Performance, and my business partner for these MASS books. James, Ben, and
myself have formed a solid friendship, and quite honestly, they are two guys who are
inspiring and incredible people, who I’m fortunate to know. Anyways, Ben had James and a
crew of other guys come down to the jungle to train and eat a very specific diet so he
could collect data on pretty much every variable you could ever imagine. You might be
wondering what kind of training they did while they were in the jungle. Well the answer is
that they did the workout that perhaps you remember from Phase 2 of MASS…the 20/40.
Most people that have done MASS seem to think that the 30/30 is the hardest
phase. I disagree, and in my opinion nothing really beats the 20/40 in terms of the impact
it has on your body. If you do the math on how much weight you actually lift, the 20/40
usually beats the 30/30 in absolute volume. I think there is an element of perception that
makes people feel like the 30/30 is worse, but in terms of the overall toll that each
workout takes on your body, the 20/40 is mathematically more devastating. The 20/40 is
a nasty blend of kind of heavy, somewhat metabolic, and ridiculous total volume. It gives
you just enough rest where you can keep putting out a high level of output, but the rest is
incomplete enough to where the fatigue catches up with you, and eventually you’re ready
to have someone put you out of your misery. Usually you’re pretty good for the first three
rounds. Then round four comes along, and the wheels start falling off your wagon. Round
five is typically an experience where your internal voices go someplace really bad. I think
round five is actually the worst round, because you’re talking to yourself, and you’re
saying…this is a bad idea. I really should stop. I mean I’ve worked really hard. There’s really
no benefit to more of this. You need to focus on round five. You need to make sure that
round doesn’t screw you up. You’re going to will yourself through round six. The allure of
the finish line is powerful in round six and it’s somehow almost not as bad as round five
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because it’s the last one. Overall, I’m a big fan of the 20/40. I have consistently found that
the 20/40 gets me strong as a bull and keeps my conditioning level very high. I do not find
the 20/40 fun though. I find the 20/40 to be one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever tried
to get through. Thankfully the 20/40 packs ridiculous results, otherwise I’d absolutely
never do that crazy shit ever again. Thank you Ben for loving the 20/40 as much as I do
and for being an absolute savage in every conceivable way that you can in life. I’m proud to
call you my brother.
Phase 2, Day 1: The 20/40
If you did MASS, you’re intimately familiar with this protocol. If you haven’t done
MASS, and you’re reading this book and doing this program, I don’t think I like you. You’re
skipping directly to Go and collecting your $200…but you didn’t earn that shit with the
personal journey that is MASS. I wish ill will upon you if you do MASS 2 without doing
MASS. I hope your deadlifts are all back and no legs. I hope you are a man who can’t bench
because it bothers your shoulders. I hope you work a desk job for the rest of your life and
have a boring spouse.
The 20/40 is a five exercise circuit. You go through the circuit 6 times. The circuit
involves a 20 second work window, and a 40 second rest window. During the 20 second
work window, the goal is to get 10 reps. If you finish the 10 reps before the 20 second
work window is done, stop, and move on to the next station with some additional rest. The
ultimate goal is to perform 300 total reps. With the 20/40, the rest between the rounds is
3 minutes. This amount of rest allows close to complete recovery after the first couple of
rounds, but by the last couple of rounds, it’s the fastest three minutes of your life. The
lower rep request and the longer inter-round rest period allow you to have a pretty good
bump in weight compared to phase 1. I personally recommend choosing the biggest 5
exercises you possibly can for this phase.
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Here’s the group that I think works best.
1.
Deadlift
2.
Bench press
3.
Lat pulldown
4.
Squat
5.
Incline bench
The only trade-off I could see making any level of sense would be to put an overhead
press in place of the incline bench here. Other than that I would definitely say don’t try to
get too creative on this, and don’t stray far from my recommendation. This phase is about
getting real dumb and mashing real hard. Follow the same advice I gave you for the 30/30
regarding not overestimating your ability regarding weight selection. The 30/30 probably
humbled you enough by this point, but I still want to throw out some words of caution
regarding this point. Remember, I want you to actually get the 300 reps. I want you to then
increase load by the smallest possible margin…and then I want you to get it again. I want
you to keep going up in weight as long as you can.
The first time I did MASS, I did the program with Ethan Grossman and Vinny
Brandstadter, who were two other trainers working at Peak Performance in NYC. These
guys were bigger than me and much stronger than me. Due to logistical concerns I had to
use the same weights as them. In the 30/30, I would get 15 on most things in round 1, but
then I’d start bombing in round 2, and there were a lot of times where I’d get to stations in
round 3 and get zero reps. It was a pretty badass experience, and I got stronger, more
muscular, and leaner, but in all honesty it was nowhere near as good an experience as the
second time I did MASS. Interestingly, the second time I did the program I did it by myself.
Usually doing a program by yourself isn’t as good. You miss out on the comradery and it’s
only you holding yourself accountable. None of that mattered as much as using the right
weight. I used some reasonable starting weights on day 1 and I didn’t finish the protocol.
In fact I didn’t even finish round 2. I finished the RFE split squats and I immediately ran
into the bathroom to throw up. I was done for the day after that. I came back the next day,
loaded up the same weights, and went to work. I finished the protocol, but I didn’t finish
the 450 reps. It took until workout 4, but on that one I got all the reps. I came back in at
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the start of the next week with slightly heavier weights…and it kicked the absolute snot
out of me. As you know, if you’ve done MASS, I came back in the next day and I loaded it up
with the same weights and I went to work. You just keep hammering away at climbing
that 450 rep mountain with the weights you selected, and eventually you reach the top. I
upped the weights a total of three times in that first phase. When you’ve got a shot at
finishing the reps, you’re going to dig deep and work much harder to do it. Finishing the
rep count is incredibly meaningful. There’s very few things that seem to possess their own
inherent, internal meaning in the modern world, but finishing all 450 reps in the 30/30, or
all 300 reps in the 20/40 is one of those things. The satisfaction of seeing progress in that
protocol is tremendous and difficult to understand if you haven’t gone through the
process. Trust me, give yourself a legitimate chance to finish every time, and then be
smart about how much weight you add as you progress. If you are smart, the results of
the program will be much more substantial than playing it the way I did the first time
around.
Phase 2, Day 2: Aerobic/Alactic Day
Day 2 of Phase 2 will be the aerobic/alactic day, and we will move on to the second
progression of our use of a Triphasic Training day. Dietz explains in his book that there are
three primary muscle actions to consider, eccentric, isometric, and concentric. If you look
at the historic resistance training data, you see that if you want to increase eccentric
strength to the highest level, you need to do eccentrics, and the same holds true for
isometric and concentric muscle actions as well. Specificity truly is the name of the game.
Dietz goes on to say that the force plate data that he collected and saw from others
demonstrated something very specific to him, and that was that elite athletes and lesser
athletes produced the same types of concentric forces and velocities, but they differed
strongly in their eccentric and isometric capabilities. The primary difference was that elite
athletes were able to perform very rapid eccentric contractions and transition to a short
isometric period. Graphically, the elite athlete’s force plate data looked like a, “V”, with a
steep eccentric curve, and a point representing the isometric activity. On the flip side, the
lesser athletes showed curves that were more like, sloping, “U’s”. Although the letter U is
really not the best way to describe it, because that the eccentric curve was flatter. Dietz’s
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hypothesis was that lesser athletes needed more work on eccentric and isometric force
and velocity capabilities in training. He has reported that many of his athletic tests have
shown marked improvements as a result of these training methods. In the athletes I’ve
coached, I’ve witnessed amazing things happen to their athletic ability as a result of more
focused eccentric and isometric work. I’m not entirely sure what the exact mechanisms
are. I think that a lot of people learn to be better lifters by spending more time under load
in positions that they usually don’t spend much time loading their tissues in. I think
there’s a proprioceptive component that is big for people with this. I also think it builds
confidence for a lot of people who haven’t spent much time training with heavy loads.
Whatever it is, I’ve consistently seen this isometric phase make people start having video
game numbers in their lifts. It’s truly been incredible to watch great results on a
consistent basis with this approach, and I am very grateful to Coach Dietz for coming up
with his system.
Teaching tactical and technical components of an activity along with organizing the
volume and intensity of training is the job of the coach. When you are performing
isometric focused exercises on this training day, there is a specific way that you are
supposed to do them. In the first block, the strategy of performing the lift is to lower for 6
seconds, and then rapidly change directions and accelerate through the top of the lift. In
this block, you want to try to lower the weight as fast as you can (don’t be a complete
moron…you’re still lifting heavy weights), and then make the weight stop on a dime in the
isometric. When you make the weight stop, hold the weight in that position for 6 seconds.
Then accelerate the weight back through the top as fast as you can. When I’m coaching
people, I always have people pushing upwards into the weight while they’re doing their
isometric. If you are squatting, I recommend that you don’t just passively hang in the
bottom of the squat during the isometric. Instead, actively push your feet into the ground,
and your back into the bar. Just don’t push so hard that you actually start moving the
weight back up. When it’s time to drive the weight up, push as hard as you can and
obliterate the lift. I think if you take me up on this bit of coaching advice, you’ll see how
much better this exercise will feel, and how much more effectively you’ll move the weight.
What I’ve personally done with what you’ll do in phase 2 is that I’ve progressed the
jumps. The progressions to the jumps are as follows. With the box jump and the long
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jump, you will jump over a small hurdle before you execute your big jump. So put a 6 to 12
inch hurdle in front of the spot where you’ll jump up to your box jump or take off for your
long jump. Do the small jump over the hurdle, and as soon as you hit the ground, take off
and execute your big jump. Try to prevent your heels from hitting the ground on the
landing from the hurdle jump. I took this idea from the way Mike Boyle executes his
second phase of plyometric training with his athletes at Mike Boyle Strength and
Conditioning (MBSC). He has his athletes do a small bounce prior to their subsequent
jumps when he’s doing exercises like hurdle hops and jumps, bounds, and other drills. I
think this is one of the more brilliant and creative techniques I’ve seen anyone in the
industry employ as a bridge from ballistic exercises like jumps where you stick the landing
to true plyometrics where you land and get off the ground in incredibly short periods of
time. In truth, phase 1 of the Triphasic Training French Contrast Method that I utilized in
this program featured zero plyometric drills. Everything was ballistic training. I think this
is smart though, because a lot of people’s tissues aren’t really ready for true plyometric
training initially. This Boyle bounce is a great segue to bridge the gap to get to true
plyometric training. Regarding the progression for the kettlebell jump for this phase, what
you’ll see is that it’s one of the easiest progressions of all time, and one that is often times
under appreciated. The progression is that you’ll use a heavier kettlebell. I don’t have a
specific recommendation for the exact weight that you should use on this. I’m fairly strong
and a decent jumper. I do phase 1 with a 35 pound kettlebell and I go up to the 44 or 45
pound kettlebell for phase 2. If you’re a large human being, chances are you aren’t a great
jumper and you don’t get off the ground that well. I’d recommend that you go pretty light
on these. The point is to train the velocity component of power development during jump
training rather than the force component. Try to get off the ground fairly quickly. If you’re
stuck in the mud, lower the weight.
The upper body plyometric activities (and I know they’re not really plyometric, but
it’s easier to use that word) are trickier to progress. I think using a lighter med ball would
be a progression (yes you read that right, lighter). We’re looking for more velocity as we
make progressions most of the time. Yes I increased the load on the weighted jump, and I
realize that it may seem contradictory to recommend decreasing the weight on the med
ball, but with the French Contrast method, the second activity is supposed to be heavier
than body weight…ultimately, upper body explosive training is just difficult, and in my
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intuitive mind, I believe this is the progression. I wouldn’t change the pull-up drill from
phase 1 to phase 2. Just keep working on doing more explosive pull-ups as you move
through the program. Regarding the push-up, this is where we’re going to make a change
though. What I want you to do with the push-up is to progress to an altitude drop. An
altitude drop means that the athlete starts at a height off the ground, falls from the
height and catches themselves on the ground. The way I’ve done this with the push-up is
that I’ve gotten into the push-up position with my hands on a bench, and I’ve dropped off
the bench, and caught myself in a push-up position on the ground. With the altitude drop,
you’re just trying to catch yourself. You are not trying to reverse the action and push
yourself off the ground. If you’re very heavy or very weak, there are alternative ways to do
this that get you a little closer to the ground. One is to put dumbbells on the ground and
put your hands on them slightly wider than a push-up position (note I would only do this
with hex dumbbells, not round ones). Then drop from the dumbbells and catch yourself on
the ground. You can also do the same thing with plates on the ground, short boxes, or
anything else that makes sense. Now on the flip side of this are the absolute freaks of
nature out there who will be doing this program. I’ve seen Ethan Grossman put the spot
bars of the squat rack up at chest height, hold on to those and drop from that height. He’s
an absolute savage though, so be weary of trying to do anything that he does. I like this
altitude drop push-up for phase 2, because the lift has an isometric focus, and this drop
really forces you to develop the isometric action of the push-up movement.
Without further ado, here’s training day 2 for phase 2.
I.
Movement prep (do whatever the hell you want in truth…just prepare)
II.
Glycolytic warm-up
a.
We used to run 2, 300-yard shuttles with 2 min rest at Springfield
b.
I’ve been having people do some glycolytic rowing in the place where I am
now
c.
i.
Row 150 meters, rest 1 min
ii.
Row 250 meters, rest 90 seconds
iii.
Row 350 meters
If you have some other idea that fits into this concept, feel free to do it
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i.
I think 3 hockey shifts on an Airdyne would work pretty well
ii. If you don’t know what a hockey shift is…45 seconds on, 1:30 off
iii. They are brutal
III.
Triphasic: 5 x 2 @ 80-88% with a 5 second isometric
IV.
Squat or dead (I highly recommend the squat…I think it makes way more sense
here)
V.
a.
6 to 12” Hurdle Jump to Box Jump x 4
b.
Jump w/weight x 4
c.
6 to 12” Hurdle Jump to Long Jump x 4
Bench or incline bench @ 88% with a 5 second isometric
a.
Pull-up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a lat pulldown or something else you
can do explosively
VI.
b.
Altitude Drop Push Up x 4
c.
Med-ball Slam x 4
Assistance: 3 x 8…no timing, work at your own pace
a.
Single arm dumbbell row
b.
Step ups
c.
Biceps
d.
Triceps
e.
Delts
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Phase 2, Day 3: Stim Day
Training day three of phase 2 is a stim day. You’re going to need this stim day after
these first two training days of the week. The back to back of the 20/40 and isometric
Triphasic is crazy. You need to take the pressure off the system a little bit with a day
that’s a little bit more like what everybody else in the world does. No timer, no crazy
French Contrast on this day that’s as close to un-MASS like as it gets. We’re going to be
going with a workout scheme that is basically as old as time in this stim day, and that’s 3
sets of 10 reps for our lifts. Doing 3 sets of 10 is great grandpa old school. I’m pretty sure
Moses brought 3 sets of 10 down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. I
think Caesar had his troops doing 3 sets of 10 to prep for war against the Gauls. Milo did 3
sets of 10 with his bull. Everyone has done 3 sets of 10 at some point. You probably
started your lifting career with it, and maybe you’ll end it with that oldie but goodie. The
thing about old school is that it usually works, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at
how much stronger and more muscular three sets of 10 will work for you. Again, just start
somewhere that you can get and keep loading more weight on each time you successfully
complete it. I’m writing this paragraph on April 21, 2017 on an airplane flying back from
Nebraska. I started doing training blocks featuring 3 sets of 10 with squat and bench back
in February. I remember doing 3 sets of 10 of squat and bench with my wife when we
were in Hawaii for my birthday. I was using 225 on the bench and 295 on the squat. This
past week when I did the protocol I was using 265 on bench and 355 on squat. That’s a big
improvement. I’ve just been very steady with this. Generally speaking, if I’ve been
successful, the next time I did it, I’d add 2.5 pound plates to each side of the bar on top of
what I did the previous time. If I absolutely smoked it, I’d put 5’s on top the next time.
Slowly but surely, those weights have gone way up. There’s another twist to the stim day
for phase 2 as compared to phase 1. The assistance work at the end is going to feature
tempo exercises. With the tempo exercises, you’re going to be using a 3 second eccentric
and a 3 second concentric. Previously in the book I wrote about the value of the statodynamic effort method, so I won’t rehash that here. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out
where the right place is to fit in the stato-dynamic effort method. This is my best guess as
to where it belongs in this particular program. So here’s training day 3 for phase 2.
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I.
Movement prep…I don’t care what you do…get yourself ready
II.
Plyo-primer
a.
2 foot lateral pogo (hop back and forth sideways over a line pretty fast) for
55 seconds
b.
III.
IV.
V.
1 foot lateral pogo, 55 seconds each leg
Plyometrics and med-balls x 2 rounds
a.
Box jumps x 8 (jump up, step down…put a bench next to your box)
b.
Med Ball slams x 10
Main Lift: 3 sets of 10…no timing, work at your own pace
I.
Bench Press or Incline Bench
II.
Squat or deadlift (I highly recommend squat)
Assistance Lift: 3 sets of 10…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. RFE Split Squat or FFE Split Squat
A2. Dumbbell row or Cable row
VI.
Accessory: Stato-dynamic effort method with 3-0-3 tempo, 3 sets
A1. Push-up x 10
A2. Squat or dead x 10 (if you squatted, then deadlift, or vice versa)
Training day four of phase 2 is going to be another Cajun cooking day. This time
you’re going to be introduced to the Cajun 20/40. The concept is pretty simple, as it’s the
20/40 protocol with 3 rounds instead of 6, and 4 minutes rest between rounds instead of
3. You want to have your chance to go HAM…here you go. Naturally I want you to get all
150 reps, but here’s your chance to go someplace real dark. You should have a pretty good
idea about how heavy you can go with this. You’ll have already done an original recipe
20/40 earlier in the week, and your previous training day was 3 sets of 10 with some of
the exercises that you’ll be using again here. The weight should be somewhere in between
what your original recipe 20/40 was and what your 3 sets of 10 weight was. In my mind,
this is some mighty fine Cajun cooking with this protocol. You’ll be crispy and blackened
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from the hot fire that you’re going to jump in here. In all honesty, I think this might be my
favorite workout in the world. There’s something ridiculously savage about this specific
protocol. You get an endorphin and adrenaline rush that is somewhat unrivaled with this
one right here. So have at it…use the same exercises as your previous 20/40, go heavier,
enjoy that one extra minute of rest, and the three fewer rounds. At the end of this, I would
again like to see you do 20 minutes of cardiorespiratory exercise.
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CHAPTER 10
Phase 3
118
The Future is Not Set
Sometimes that which appears to be the worst thing in the world ends up
being an opportunity for something else that ends up being the best thing that ever
happened in your life. Sometimes you think you land your dream opportunity, and it turns
out to be nothing like what you expected it to be. I believed that my life’s dream came true
when I got the phone call that said that Springfield College wanted me to join their
Exercise Science department as an Assistant Professor. Springfield College was the only
place I wanted to go to for my Ph.D, and when I got to return as a faculty member, I felt
like I had achieved the highest possible career accomplishment that I could reach. In some
ways it was weirdly anti-climactic because I was 31 years old, and I felt like I reached the
top of the mountain. Now that being said, it was still one of the happiest days of my life,
and I can honestly say that I cried with joy in my car after I got off the phone with the dean
of the school. That same dean of the school would walk me to my car three and a half
years later with everything from my office in a box after I got fired in a truly humiliating
fashion. I blew a truly incredible opportunity at Springfield. I acted irresponsibly,
arrogantly, and stupidly while I was there. I ignored a lot of departmental responsibilities,
and I formed relationships with the students that were too close despite being warned
about a million times not to do so. It was impossible for me to not behave the way that I
did. Everything about what I was doing felt right to me. I was coaching my athletes who
were also my students, and we were teammates on a competitive strongman team at the
same time. That team was truly a family. I may have been the dysfunctional patriarch of a
dysfunctional team, which outwardly was known as Team Ironsports, and internally selfidentified as, Team Assclown, but I was the right person with the right attitude to lead that
team. I have no regrets.
What’s interesting about the previous paragraph is that I think everyone who reads
it will misinterpret the message. The cliché message that will be interpreted in my opinion
will be a bunch of people who will think that I have no regrets because I followed my
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instincts and I can live with the consequences. In truth though, the exact opposite of that
is actually what I mean. I had been free of all mind altering chemicals interacting with my
system since December of 2003. Then in the fall of 2013 I suffered a hip injury. That injury
caused a significant amount of internal bleeding and the fluid was accumulating in the
lateral compartment of my thigh. I never go to the doctor, but while I was in school a
couple of the students were a bit worried about me. I couldn’t walk and I was pale as a
ghost. So I broke down and went to the hospital. Very rarely do you ever get seen right
away in a hospital, but they rushed me in to see a doctor. They immediately took blood
and saw that my red blood cell count was that of someone with anemia, and that my
thigh was swollen and hard due to the blood pooling into it. Long story short, they needed
me to keep moving, otherwise the blood might calcify in the muscle, and I would have
some significant problems. To get me to move they felt that Percocet was an appropriate
drug to give me to reduce pain.
The Percocet worked unbelievably well. I hadn’t felt so good in such a long time. I felt like a
different person. I felt like the kind of person I wanted to be. I felt so much more
comfortable around other people. Moving my body was so easy. Dieting became the
easiest thing in the world. I was never hungry and I didn’t feel sapped of energy. It really
felt like the best of all possible worlds with having Percocet in my life. Unfortunately I’m a
substance abuser. It wasn’t long until I was abusing chemicals again for the remainder of
that year. My behavior became completely erratic and I’m quite sure it was apparent to
everyone who interacted with me that something was different and wrong.
Stress mounted in my life to the point where I was breaking as a person. I knew from the
previous year that Springfield College didn’t want me back as a faculty member. Now I was
in the full grips of mania and chemical dependence again for the first time in ten years. I
was competing in strongman for a national and world championship. I was teaching full
time (like a lunatic), and I was taking classes full time to become a licensed massage
therapist. I was also in the throes of having a seven year relationship come to a crashing
end. My fiancé was a wonderful person who got caught in the eye of the storm that had
become my life. I was so angry about what I perceived to be unfair treatment over my job
situation. I couldn’t come to grips with the fact that my dream job was coming to an end
and that I didn’t know what would be next in life. My ego was bruised to the point of
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incomprehension. Here I was, Mr. PhD, Mr. Strongman, Mr. Ex Phys genius, Mr.
charismatic lecturer…all reduced to a frightened child resorting to escaping into the world
of mind altering chemicals and juvenile behavior because I couldn’t cope with reality. I
acted out like you wouldn’t believe, and I blamed everyone but myself. The only person to
blame for all of my career mishaps was me. I was so full of myself. I was so sure I was
untouchable. I was a moron. I was lazy. I was a child. I have no regrets because I got to
learn how pathetically stupid I was, and how inaccurate my perception of appropriate
actually was. It took me a little while to actually figure out the degree of how bad my
intuition is, because I in fact didn’t the extent of it until I read a book called Thinking, Fast
and Slow in the summer of 2016. The other reason that I feel as though I don’t have any
regrets is because I’m not the only one out there whose intuition is tremendously faulty.
Your intuition is just as bad as mine, and so is the intuition of everyone else that you
know.
The minute that you’re exposed to a stimuli, you’re asked a question, or you’re prompted
to think about a subject, your intuitive mind jumps in and alerts you to what you think you
know about that topic. That intuitive mind is very sure of itself, and it will paint its own
internal logic framework that will convince itself that it is completely right. The problem is
that this intuitive belief is almost always wrong, and the internal logic that you build to
explain yourself is correct, but for something that isn’t the answer to the actual question
or problem posed. We all fall victims to heuristics. Heuristics are when we come up with a
correct answer or explanation, but we apply it to a scenario that is the wrong context, or
we inaccurately assess a linear reasoning puzzle. Sometimes you need examples to
understand heuristics. The easiest one is to think about is every political debate ever. The
moderator asks the candidate a question, and the candidate spins the answer into some
other topic all together and never actually answers the question. An example of how
someone could come to the wrong conclusion regarding a linear logic puzzle is one that is
given in the book that I found fascinating in terms of its implications for coaches. In the air
force, they discovered that fighter pilots in training were less likely to make a mistake
after they were yelled at by their commanding officer. They concluded that discipline and
punishment were great techniques to use to improve performance, and that it was
probable that the soldier increased focus on the next attempt after the punishment. In
truth, what the data actually showed was that all soldiers have an average performance in
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the execution of different military skills (such as firing accuracy). Sometimes the soldier
had an outstanding performance, and other times they had a very poor performance. The
law of regression (a fancy statistical model that predicts scores and averages) says that
scores will always tend to resort back to the mean score. So if you just had an outstanding
performance, your next attempt will likely be worse. If you just had a terrible performance,
the next attempt will likely be better. The commanding officers yelled at the soldiers when
they had sub-average performances, and the next performance by the soldier was almost
always better. The reason that the next performance was better had nothing to do with
punishment or discipline. The reason had everything to do with statistical averages and
the law of regression; however, the commanding officers came to the conclusion that
every time they disciplined, performance went up (which it did…but the discipline was not
causal, only correlative). That example got me thinking about how deeply embedded
heuristics are in your psyche. You’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that
you’re probably wrong about whatever it is you’re thinking right now, and the reasoning
you’re using to explain yourself is probably faulty.
The only way we can actually learn things accurately is to slow down and analyze things
very carefully, likely with mathematics and statistics. You’re not going to want to do this.
In fact, you probably have a sick feeling in your gut right now thinking about this solution.
That sick feeling is due to the fact that you’re going to have to actually use your mind to
learn the truth. The only way you can actually use your accurate, skeptical, problem solving
mind is to utilize the sympathetic nervous system. The author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
talked about experiments that he and his colleague did where they would ask people
these multi-step, complicated math problems that you can’t use your intuitive mind to
solve. The minute these people had to slow down and think on these problems, their
pupils dilated, their blood pressure rose, their heart rate elevated, and they started
secreting sweat through their glands. These are all classic sympathetic responses. None
of these people wanted to solve these problems. They all would have liked to have avoided
this response and the work that had to go with it, but they were compelled to have to
solve these questions because they were subjects in a research project and solving the
problem was expected of them. Nobody wants to stop, break things down piece by piece,
analyze things from every angle, and certainly nobody wants to break out a calculator and
work their way through a cumbersome equation. You’re not going to want to do this with
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your life in analyzing your past behaviors, and you won’t want to do this with your training
either.
As a person I am filled with pride, and my ego runs the show. I want everyone to think I’m
great. I want everyone to like me. When people don’t like me or pay attention to me it kills
me inside and I tend to form resentments. Often times I’ll internalize that resentment, and
it will gnaw away at me. That internal gnawing feeling will ultimately lead to my acting
out, often times in self destructive ways. If I hadn’t gone back through my life year by year,
acquaintance by acquaintance, thinking about specific interactions that I had with them, I
would never have learned this about myself. This is information I don’t want to know
about myself. It hurts too much to know how fragile I am as a person. The thing is, once
you know this about yourself, you can start recognizing this about yourself when it’s
actually happening. Once you can become aware of a thing, you can start the process of
potentially doing something about it. Illuminating the dark corners of your behaviors and
responses is eye opening in a highly unpleasant way; however, if you have the courage to
change your responses to stimuli that is causing you to reflexively have damaging
responses, you’ll be amazed at how much better your life can be.
The same lesson about avoiding unpleasant feelings and being wrong about everything is
highly applicable to training. I see people work out every day in NYC. Almost everyone I see
stops so far short of what they could actually do it’s absolutely amazing. “It’s so heavy!” “I
can’t do that!” “I’m going to be so sore tomorrow!” Statements like this take place all the
time. Meanwhile, I’m watching this person and the barbell or dumbbell is moving very fast
through the zone. The heart rate is nowhere near maximal. These are people who have no
actual concept of how hard they can work. They’re completely clueless about what their
limits actually are. They are never going to change their bodies through their training
methods because they are self-sabotaging via their intuitive mind. The minute they start
to move into the land of sympathetics, they don’t like the experience and they back away.
The sympathetic experience is one that is meant to be unpleasant. Sympathetics are
initiated to get you away from a large predator that is chasing you and trying to kill you.
We use sympathetics in emergency situations, and the key to surviving the emergency is
to get out of that situation. In my mind, the process of training is to move into
sympathetics and learn to be okay in that environment. You need exposure to that
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environment, and you need to accurately perceive that environment. This is where data
becomes so powerful in my opinion. Data on internal biomarkers gives people an
indication about what their feelings actually mean. Once you know what 100% HR is, then
you have a reference for knowing what 70% feels like. If you have this perspective, then
you understand that 70% isn’t so bad. The other thing is that if you can see data going in a
direction, and you associate positive feelings with seeing data go in that direction, you’ll
start changing your behaviors to push the data further in that direction. If you were able
to get 10 reps with 135 last time, I’m going to need you to attempt 140 this time…you can’t
stay the same, even if you felt like 135 was, “so heavy!”. If you stay the same then you’re
falling victim to your intuitive mind which believes that this place is good enough, or safe,
and that this next place (heavier, forward) is unsafe and a bad idea. Science and progress
are the most dominant conceptual forces that have ever existed on this planet. If you
want to be comfortable and happy in your safe little world, keep listening to the voices
inside your head. If you want to go someplace that is bigger and better, you need to set
the voice aside and do more than you did last time. The only thing that matters is
progress.
My experience at Springfield College was neither right nor wrong. My experience simply
happened. Overly analyzing the past will get me nowhere. I’m not the kind of person who
is satisfied with anything. Good enough simply isn’t. I know much more now than I did
when I was at Springfield. I’m more useful to myself and others now as compared to then.
I didn’t become more useful by avoiding sympathetics. I’ve learned to discipline myself
more and more mentally. I read more now than then. I write more now than then. I train
more now than then. I’m less arrogant now than then. I’m less self-destructive now than
then. I’m less likely to fall victim to heuristic errors now as compared to then. I have no
regrets because without the incredibly painful experience that was Springfield, I wouldn’t
have had the impetus to make the self-improvements that I have. Springfield could have
broken me, but I’m a resilient person. If I didn’t have that resiliency, then in my opinion, it
wouldn’t have been much of a loss if I had gone ahead and killed myself. Good riddance to
waste.
Phase 3, day 1 is a developmental day. This developmental day was not featured in MASS.
This one is all new, and I think you’re going to love hating it. The program for MASS starts
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with a wide variety of exercises and then it narrows down the total number of different
exercises as the program goes on and starts focusing on a few specific movements. MASS
2 works with the same kind of concept regarding the developmental days. The 30/30 has
the most exercises, the 20/40 is fewer, and now we’re out here in the weeds of phase 3,
and we’ll be reducing the number of exercises in the big lift even more. There will be two
movements done for the main lift component of the phase 3 developmental day. Those
preceding paragraphs about continuing to push forward are in this chapter for a reason,
because this developmental day is going to test your psychological ability to push yourself
into places that you don’t want to go. With the 30/30 and the 20/40, decision is taken out
of your hands to a certain degree. You’re being asked to get 15 reps or 10 reps. With those
protocols, there is a clear end in sight. In this phase, those training wheels are coming off,
and there is much less certainty for you to rely on. With this phase, the number of reps
you get is entirely up to you. The one request I have of you is that you always get more
reps each subsequent time that you do this developmental day workout. Allow the data to
drive you further into the sympathetic rabbit hole, and feel the reward of progress. The
phase 3 developmental day is going to use two big lifts, and you’re going to use the same
protocol with both of them. I’m going to recommend that you do the upper body lift first,
because if you do the lower body lift first, you’re going to be completely smoked, and I
think your upper body lift will suffer as a result. If you do the upper body lift first, you’ll still
have plenty of energy, and I don’t think your lower body lift will suffer in the least bit. I
affectionately call this workout, “The Deuce”. I think you’ll know why once you do it.
The Deuce is real shitty. You’re going to have a 2 minute window to get as many reps as
you possibly can of a big lift. I’ve seen this number vary quite a bit between anywhere as
low as about 8 reps to upwards of 30 reps in a single round. I’d say the sweet spot is
probably around 20. This is a really terrible blend of pretty heavy and lots of it. I designed
this workout when I was still at Springfield College (hence why this chapter starts with a
Springfield story). I had competed and coached in a number of strongman contests by the
time I came up with this workout. Essentially, I was trying to mimic the experience of
competing in strongman in a workout. We used to joke that the sport of strongman is
essentially being given a weight that is 95% of your 1RM and having to do 10 reps with it.
It’s funny, but that’s essentially what happens in a contest. The emotional excitation gets
really high, and you can all of a sudden do things you wouldn’t normally do. You’re usually
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given a block of time to work in that feels like an eternity, and you figure things out with
your body to overcome what seems to be an insurmountable challenge. This is a very
difficult concept to mimic in training, particularly without eliciting the emotional excitation
response. The Deuce was essentially my answer to this problem, and it seemed to work
really well. What I find funny is that I only told you a little bit about what The Deuce entails
with the second sentence of this paragraph, because you’re not done once you finish that
first 2 minute block of max reps. When you get done with your 2 minutes, you get a 4
minute rest period. Then you have another 2 minute block of max reps. Unfortunately,
you’re still not done. You get another 4 minute break, and then you have a third 2 minute
block of max reps. I know, it’s awful, but you’re going to benefit so much from this workout
that it’s ridiculous. People’s numbers go up week to week with this protocol; it boggles my
mind. I’ve seen the same thing happen when people compete in strongman too. When you
compete you go someplace you’ve never been in training. Your muscles contract with a
level of force production that is beyond anything you’ve ever felt before. When you go back
to training after that experience, you’re stronger. This protocol elicits a similar response,
and you’ll simply find another, higher notch to exist at in the aftermath of this workout.
Hold your nose while I show you, The Deuce. You may want to send me hate/love mail
after you’ve done this. If you do, I want to see what your week to week gains in reps are
with this protocol. Also, you’re welcome for the assistance work…it’s awesome.
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The Deuce
I.
Movement Prep: Do whatever you need to do to prepare yourself
II.
Plyo Prep & Med Ball
III.
1.
2 Foot Lateral Pogo x 45 seconds
2.
1 Foot Lateral Pogo x 45 seconds each
3.
Med Ball Slams x 10
Main Lift: Deadlift/Squat & Bench/Incline Bench (Estimate 70%, 75%, or 80% of your
max squat/deadlift (over 500 pounds, 70%, over 400 pounds, 75%, under 400 pounds use
80%)
*** Note that you can rack the weight during the 2 minutes as many times as you need to
if you are benching or squatting
- Bench or Incline Bench for 2 minutes…get as many reps as you can in that time
- Rest 4 minutes
- Bench or Incline for 2 minutes
- Rest 4 minutes
- Bench or Incline for 2 minutes…done
NEXT…
- Deadlift or Squat (I highly recommend the squat) for 2 minutes…get as many reps
as you can in that time
- Rest for 4 minutes…
- Repeat as prescribed for upper body
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IV.
Assistance (2 rounds each)…take as much rest as you want between rounds. Your
arms are going to be thumping…let them come back to reality before trying to repeat. I
think I usually take at least 3 to 4 minutes between doing these.
1. The Arm Farm…do not put the Dumbbells Down
- Seated DB French Press x 10
- 2 Hand Simultaneous Curls x 10
- Lying Skull Crushers x 10
- Palms up on the up, palms down on the down Curls x 10
- Cheat Hammer Curls x 10
- Military Press x 10
- Flat Bench Press x 10
2. Delt Domination
- Front Raises x 10
- Lateral Raises x 10
- Bent Over Row w/rear delt lateral sweep x 10 (this is basically a wide row)
- Military Press x 10
- Incline Press x 10
- Bent Over Row x 10
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Phase 3, Day 2: Triphasic Training
Phase 3, day 2 is the last usage of the Triphasic Training model used in MASS 2. As
was explained earlier, the Triphasic model breaks training blocks up by focusing the first
block on the eccentric phase, the second block on the isometric phase, and the third on the
concentric phase of the muscle contractile action. The book you are currently reading
cannot do Triphasic Training justice, and if you don’t immediately buy that book after
reading this, you’re crazy, because you’re getting a bastardized version that just skims the
surface of Dietz’s masterpiece with what I’m giving you. The first block of MASS 2 focused
you on the eccentric, the second block focused you on the isometric, and the third block of
MASS 2 is the concentric phase. In the previous chapter, I explained that when you’re
performing the isometric focused lift, you should lower the weight into the position where
you will stop it as fast as you can, and that you should always accelerate the weight
through the concentric portion of the lift. In this phase, there is no tempo anywhere in the
lift, and the idea is that you want to move the weight through all phases of the lift as fast
as you can. Great strength athletes ultimately express force and power that is awe
inspiring, and part of these displays lies in the way that they learn to attempt to move
loads as fast as they possibly can, even when those weights are incredibly heavy.
I’ve learned so much from working with clients in the general population. One of
the things I’ve consistently seen is that people have no idea how to lift weights properly.
One of the most consistent things I’ve seen people do wrong is that they don’t move
weights fast during any part of the motion. At first, I didn’t realize that the people I was
watching weren’t trying to push the weights back up as fast as they possibly could, but
then I started cueing them to do so, and whoa…completely different product. The thought
of trying to launch the weight into outer space never occurred to them, and nobody had
ever told them that they should be trying to do that. Maybe I’m different, but I’ve always
tried to destroy everything I’ve ever touched. So please…pretty please with a cherry on
top…drive the weights…destroy everything…you have permission to mash.
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Let’s go through the progressions for your Triphasic workout for phase 3. First, to
reiterate, there is no tempo for your lift. Move the weight fast in every direction, and think
about rocket launches, Mark McGwire in the home run derby, the way Jaws blows up at
the end of the movie, or the Joker shooting that bazooka at Harvey Dent in the prison
transport vehicle in the Dark Knight to inspire your aggressive behavior. Second, you are
going to perform add-a-drop prior to performing your box jump in this phase. That’s right,
the depth jump is making its presence felt in MASS 2. So, you’re going to stand on one box,
step off the box, and then as soon as you hit the ground, quickly jump up on another box.
If you’re wondering how to pick the correct height for the box to stand on, you should use
a box that allows you to jump higher than if you simply jumped off the ground. For a lot of
people, this will not be a very high box at all. Start off really conservative…maybe stand on
a 45 pound plate if you’re heavy and weak. If you’re an absolute freak show, you might be
looking at a box approaching 18 to 20 inches…but that is probably the absolute highest
you should even think about, and you better be an Olympic triple jumper if you’re doing
that. Most people will probably be most comfortable in the 6 to 12” range (that’s what she
said) with the box height that you’ll be dropping off of. The progression for the kettlebell
jump is to get a heavier bell. The progression for the long jump is that you’re going to be
dropping off a box and performing a depth long jump. The same rule applies here as to the
box jump in terms of the drop from the box should improve your jump. So please, test
things out with this. My advice on the long jump is as follows (and this goes for the
second phase long jump after the hurdle hop as well), let the downward action of the arms
in the windup to the jump be the big driver of the quality of your jump. When I’m coaching
people on long jump, I tell them to think about doing a med ball slam in their windup to
the jump. This is especially helpful in the hurdle hop long jump and the depth long jump.
Imagine that you’re landing and slamming a med ball as hard as you possibly can. This will
cause your body to rapidly coil and store a tremendous amount of elastic energy prior to
uncoiling and launching you forward and up. When you’re dropping off the box, this drop
and the acceleration of gravity will speed up the downward action of the arms for the
windup, which should ultimately lead to a bigger jump.
Regarding the upper body progressions for this third phase, we’re not going to try
to get excessively fancy here. Stick with the explosive pull-up. Stick with the lighter med
ball slam. The only thing to change is that we’re simply going to switch from an altitude
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drop push-up to a depth push-up. Set yourself up the same way as you did in phase 2,
where you’re in an elevated push-up position. From here, drop yourself off of the bench, or
whatever else you’ve decided to use to prop yourself up on. When you hit the ground, try
to immediately perform a push up where you push yourself off of the ground. Try to land
with your elbows bent, and absorb the impact with your muscles. Allow the landing to
bend your elbows a little more, but do not allow the landing to bend you like a pretzel.
Resist excessive impact bending and quickly push yourself off the ground. Phase 3, day 2
is a very neurologically demanding day. You should be very well prepared for this electric
and explosive training day by this point in your journey through MASS 2. Here is the layout
for your training day.
I.
Movement prep (do whatever the hell you want in truth…just prepare)
II.
Glycolytic warm-up
a.
We used to run 2, 300-yard shuttles with 2 min rest at Springfield
b.
I’ve been having people do some glycolytic rowing in the place where I am
now
c.
i.
Row 150 meters, rest 1 min
ii.
Row 250 meters, rest 90 seconds
iii.
Row 350 meters
If you have some other idea that fits into this concept, feel free to do it
i.
I think 3 hockey shifts on an Airdyne would work pretty well
ii.
If you don’t know what a hockey shift is…45 seconds on, 1:30 off
iii.
They are brutal
III.
Triphasic: 5 x 2 @ 80-88%
IV.
Squat or Dead (I highly recommend the squat…I think it makes way more sense
here)
a.
Depth Box Jump x 4
b.
Jump w/weight x 4
c.
Depth Long Jump x 4
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V.
Bench or Incline Bench @ 88% with a 5 second isometric
a.
Pull-up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a lat pulldown or something else you
can do explosively
VI.
b.
Depth Push Up x 4
c.
Med-ball Slam x 4
Assistance: 3 x 8…no timing, work at your own pace
a.
Single arm dumbbell row
b.
Step ups
c.
Biceps
d.
Triceps
e.
Delts
Phase 3, Day 3: Stim Day
Phase 3, day 3 is going to be a stim day. You’ve earned this stim day after the
combo of The Deuce and that neurological highest order heavy Triphasic session. The
difference between the stim day in phase 2 and phase 3 is that the reps on the main lifts
are going to be reduced from 10 to 8. MASS 2 is an interesting animal when you really
start analyzing it from a program design perspective. What I want you to know about this
program is that it is a little bit of everything. These stim days are following an absolutely
classic linear periodization model. We started with phase 1 having the highest volume and
lowest intensity, and we’ve simply dropped volume and increased intensity as we’ve gone.
The Triphasic days progress when you examine the types of ballistic activities that you’re
doing. You gradually have to get better and better at rapidly absorbing forces in this
model, and ultimately redirecting yourself rapidly following the fastest absorption possible
with the depth jumps. This sort of plyometric progression is about as classic as it gets in
the world of exercise science. Thus far in the program you’ve been going through an
undulating weekly model with the featured training days. You have light (developmental),
middle (stim), heavy days (Triphasic) when you think about it. This is another classical
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approach that has been shown to work about as well as anything ever has in our field.
You’ve also got a bit of a surprise waiting for you in Phase 4, with a conjugate block that
will peak your limit strength to a level that you didn’t know about…but let’s ruin the fun
now talking about that. Essentially, it’s all been thought through, and I’m really just
skimming the surface of all the cool stuff that goes into the thought process of designing
these programs with this book. I just want you to see that good program design can be
one thing (a pure linear model, a pure conjugate model, a concurrent model…or it could be
a blend of all models, which is what MASS 2 actually is).
Here’s your training session for Phase 3, day 3, stim session. You should be well prepared
to dominate some sets of 8 reps with some pretty legit weight by now. Start with a smart
weight and keep going up throughout your four weeks with your stim days. Again, I’m
recommending that you do your upper body lift before your lower body lift in this training
day for the same reasons outlined earlier.
I. Movement prep…I don’t care what you do…get yourself ready
II. Plyo-primer
A. 2 foot lateral pogo (hop back and forth sideways over a line pretty fast) for 60
seconds
B. foot lateral pogo, 60 seconds each leg
III. Plyometrics and med-balls x 2 rounds
A. Box jumps x 8 (jump up, step down…put a bench next to your box)
B. Med Ball slams x 10
IV. Main Lift: 3 sets of 8…no timing, work at your own pace
A. Bench Press or Incline Bench
B. Squat or deadlift (I highly recommend squat)
VII. Assistance Lift: 3 sets of 8…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. RFE Split Squat or FFE Split Squat
A2. Dumbbell row or Cable row
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VIII. Accessory: 3 sets…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. Biceps x 8
A2. Triceps x 8
A3. Delts x 8
Phase 3, Day 4: Cajun Workout
The fourth training day for phase 3 is another Cajun workout. This one is real
messed up. You’re going to take the 20/40 exercises. You’re going to load them with your
20/40 weights. And you’re going to try to complete a 30/30 based workout with this set
up. So try to get 15 reps at all the stations in the 30 second work window. You will be
performing three rounds of this, and you get 5 minutes rest between the rounds. Do not
underestimate how absolutely terrible this is going to be. Of all the Cajun based workouts,
this one is the absolute most crispy. My recommendation on how to do this right is as
follows. The first time you do this, use your 20/40 load. I haven’t been able to come close
to finishing with that weight, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the most out of
doing it from a gains perspective. What I’ve found is that the best way to approach this
one is to lower the weight if you don’t get it the next time you do it. Now how much you
lower the weight is going to be dependent on how close you get. Personally, I was in single
digit reps on some of the stations in the third round, so I had to drop weight quite a bit.
You want to try to dial this in to find what you can actually do. If you manage to finish this
with 15 at every station, increase the weight. At the end of this workout, as was the case
with the previous Cajun workouts, please perform 20 minutes of moderate intensity
cardiorespiratory exercise.
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CHAPTER 11
Phase 4
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Hasta la Vista, Baby
If you’ve finished MASS, you know that there’s a level of being sad about the
journey ending that goes through you. That feeling is something I’ve felt before. When I
was in high school, my baseball team won the state championship my sophomore year.
We went on a magical run. Nobody that was a member of that team will ever forget the
journey through the state tournament, and the craziness of actually winning the damn
thing. As cool as it was that we had won it, I was so sad when it was over. That journey
was the most spectacular few weeks of my life. Every day felt so special, and I remember
feeling so alive and excited. We didn’t know who we were going to face next, and the
exhilaration of being in these high pressure games, playing against very talented squads
intensified the experience so much. Then it was over…and it was back to regular life.
I earned my Ph.D in August, 2009. My adopted mother was in the audience. My
mixed martial arts coach was there. My long-time girlfriend was there to see it. All my
classmates were there. That day was a big deal. I was surrounded by people who seemed
to represent my past, present, and future. I had come from a tumultuous past, and
somehow I had managed to get my shit together and go on an academic march starting at
age 24 that was terminating on this day. I had worked so hard. I had overcome so much. I
was flooded with emotions that day. I passed. Everyone was so excited. We went out and
celebrated. Then it was over. Now what?
I remember thinking how cool it would be if we actually won the state
championship in baseball. I remember thinking so many times that I just wanted to finish
my Ph.D and get on with my life. We’re always planning and looking forward to the next
big thing. We’re so concerned with finishing and demonstrating that we conquered
something. A lot of the times we miss out on the best component of everything. The
moment is the show. The moment is all there is. Sometimes you have to slap yourself in
the face and smell the roses that are right here, right now. If you don’t do that, then your
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life is passing you by. The other thing you might realize is that you wish you could be back
in those moments that you were trying to get out of. You might realize that those
moments were truly incredible. I feel like that’s a lesson that a lot of people learn from
having done MASS. You read the intro to the book, and you say, screw this guy if he thinks
I can’t finish this program. You’re looking forward to the day that you’re done. You do that
first workout, and you get punched in the face with reality. The 30/30 is going to make you
question everything. You’re dying for that workout to be over. You’ll get through that
workout, and you’ll see yourself improving as you go. The transformation in your fitness
and your body by week 4 is unbelievable, and you’re ready for that new phase. Phase 2 is
interesting. Maybe not quite as hard as the first phase while you’re in the singular
workout, but as you go along through the weeks, you feel like your body is taking a
beating. Pretty soon you start wishing you were done with the whole program. You work
your way through the next few weeks. Before you know it, you’re in phase 4, and you’re
closing in on the finish. And then there you are, in the last week, in the last workout…
you’re done. You made it. And you miss it. Now what?
Not every moment is a big moment. Life can’t be that way. Some things are more
special than other things. The biggest moments are the ones that come with a build-up.
The more the build-up is an arduous grind, the greater the experience of the moment at
the end. I think the secret to happiness is to put yourself into positions where you feel like
you have an almost insurmountable obstacle in your way, and you decide that you’re going
to try to beat it. To conquer the obstacle, you’re going to have to grind day after day for
months, or perhaps years. In my opinion, everyone needs their white whale in life. You
need to have something you’re chasing that brings you to the verge of madness. You need
a quest…a hunt…a higher purpose. If you don’t have that, then you’re stuck in the mire of
the 99% of the rest of the population. The 99% is satisfied with mediocrity…with being fat…
with being weak…with being poor…with going nowhere. If I end up in that rut, somebody
please kill me. I don’t ever want to be comfortable. I don’t ever want to be secure. When
you’re fat, dumb, and happy, you’re a shell of a human being. To live is to put yourself out
there. If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably also done MASS. You’ve probably also been
able to grind in life. You’ve probably shown up for work day after day, even when you
didn’t want to. You’ve probably also been the kind of person who isn’t afraid to gamble.
You’ve been dissatisfied with elements of life that you felt weren’t up to your standard,
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you’ve taken a stand, and you’ve created change. This book and this program isn’t just
about training. This is a way of life. This is about being one of the last members of the
group who are the badass mother fuckers who still populate this planet.
You’re in phase 4 now, and nothing can stop you. You’re going to finish, and you’re
probably crushing life right now. Every mountain has a surprise up its sleeve for you with
the last ascent. Every horror movie has a villain with one last move up his sleeve that you
didn’t see coming. MASS 2 is about to drop the bomb on you. Welcome to the strength
block that we used to use at Springfield College to peak for contests. I’ve consistently seen
young men add over 100 pounds to their deadlift in 4 weeks with this program. I’ve never
seen any other protocol quite like this one, and when I first put it together, I thought
maybe I was crazy for even thinking of it.
Like I said before, MASS 2 is a little bit of everything. You’ve had adjacent linear
periodization models working side by side in an overall undulating designed training week.
Now we’re about to step straight into the teeth of a conjugate model training block. The
oldest debate of all in training comes down to which is better, concurrent or conjugate. I
don’t know what the answer is, and I don’t really think there’s an answer to tell you the
truth. Sometimes you need to focus on a couple of things, and other times you need a
little more variety. Training is a microcosm of life. If you accurately understand the
dimensions that go into a healthy life, you can probably create a pretty decent training
system. A healthy life isn’t overly safe, and it isn’t ever just one thing. You need anchors
and foundations in life, but then you have to stray away from that point from time to time.
Life needs rhythms, but it also needs some sudden jolts. Life is a dynamic system that
often has more than one right answer to a problem. Multiple solutions can ultimately get
you to the same place in life. Everything is both critically important and insignificant at the
same time. You have to be comfortable with the hypocrisy of life if you want to get the
most out of it. The good stuff exists in the depths, in the shadows, in the crags. The good
stuff isn’t always straight forward. The good stuff doesn’t get handed to you. You earn the
good stuff. You bleed for the good stuff. The ancients understood that sacrifice was
required to inspire the gods to become involved in a critical component of life. Are you
ready to see what you can handle?
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Phase 4 will consist of workouts divided into an A day and a B day. The A day will
feature the squat and the bench as your big lifts. The B day will feature the deadlift and
the incline bench as your big lifts. Please feel free to use a safety squat bar, a trap bar, a
swiss bar, or whatever other kind of bar you want for your lifts. Generally speaking, choose
implements that don’t bother your joints. You’re going to be loading yourself up very
heavy every single day in this phase, with some pretty high levels of volume. Don’t choose
implements that destroy your joints on top of everything else that is about to get
hammered in this phase. Also, if you are a strongman competitor or someone else that
needs to develop overhead strength, please feel free to turn the incline press into an
overhead press. I’m not married to an exercise or an implement. Training plans are
conceptual suggestions that are tools to help you get results…nothing more. In phase 4,
you will perform two A days and two B days per training week. The percentages, sets, and
reps will be changing week to week in this phase. The percentages will be 82% for week 1,
88% for week 2, 92% for week 3, and 95% for week 4. The sets will be 5 for week 1, 6 for
week 2, 8 for week 3, and 10 for week 4. The reps will be 5 for week 1, 3 for week 2, 2 for
week 3, and 1 for week 4. When you are performing the exercise for the A day, you will
perform the squat, rest 60 seconds prior to benching, then rest 90 seconds prior to
squatting again. The same timing format will hold true for the performance of the
exercises in the B day. This protocol might sound impossible to you. The protocol is
definitely not impossible. I have done this before. I have seen many other people do this
before. You can do this. It’s not a big deal unless you make it a big deal. If you make it a big
deal, that’s okay…maybe you’ve been living under a rock your whole life and you didn’t
know it. When we did this at Springfield, we would test our 1 rep max on both lifts every
single time we did one of these training days. We did this so that we could accurately
prescribe the right percentage for that day. If you’re smoked, then you don’t hit as high a 1
rep max, so your training weights are lower. Thing is…people just kept getting stronger
throughout this whole thing when we did that…so the weights just kept going up. If you’re
a big time strength veteran, you probably don’t need to test your 1 rep max every single
time with this. You might want to just check in at the beginning and perhaps a couple
more times as you’re going. Newer people should test very often if not every time.
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Phase 4, week 1, A day, breaks down as follows:
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 5 sets of 5 @ 82%, 60 seconds between A1. and A2., 90 seconds between A2.
and A1.
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Hamstring curls (machine preferably, if not, slideboard or ball) x 8
A2. DB single arm row x 8
A3. Single leg dead x 8
A4. Lat-pulldown/Pull-ups x 8
Phase 4, week 1, B day, breaks down as follows:
I Movement Prep
II Main Lift: 5 sets of 5 @ 82%, same timing as A day
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Turkish Get-Up x 3 each arm
A2. DB single arm row x 8
A3. Single leg squat x 8
A4. Lat pulldown/Pull-ups x 8
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Phase 4, week 2, A day breaks down as follows:
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 6 sets of 3 reps @ 88%, 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Hamstring curls x 6
A2. Biceps x 10
A3. Single leg dead x 6
A4. Triceps x 10
Phase 4, week 2, B day breaks down as follows:
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 6 sets of 3 reps @ 88%...same timing protocol as A day
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Turkish Get-Up x 3
A2. Biceps x 10
A3. Single Leg Squats x 6
A4. Triceps x 10
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Phase 4, week 3, A day breaks down as follows:
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 8 sets of 2 reps @ 92%, with 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Hamstring curls x 6
A2. Single Arm DB Row x 6
A3. Single Leg Dead x 6
A4. Lat Pull-down/Pull-ups x 6
Phase 4, week 3, B day breaks down as follows:
I Movement Prep
II Main Lift: 8 sets of 2 @ 92%, with 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline Bench
III. Assistance x 3
A1. Turkish Get-ups x 3
A2. Single Arm DB Row x 6
A3. Single Leg Squat x 6
A4. Lat Pull-down/Pull-ups x 6
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Phase 4, week 4, A day breaks down as follows:
I Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 10 sets of 1 @ 95%, with 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3
A1. Hamstring curls x 6
A2. Curls x 8
A3. Single Leg Dead x 6
A3. Triceps x 8
Phase 4, week 4, B day breaks down as follows:
I Movement Pre
II. Main Lift: 10 sets of 1 @ 95%, same timing element as A day
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline Bench
III. Assistance x 3
A1. Turkish Get-Ups x 3
A2. Curls x 8
A3. Single Leg Squat x 6
A3. Triceps x 8
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Closing
144
Judgement Day
Those who we are most likely to forget are those closest to home. There’s very little
glory in consistently thinking of your parents, or your spouse, or your children. You see
these people every day. These people often can be the ones who grind on you. These
people can often be the ones you pawn the dishes off on, or fail to thank for taking the
trash out. These are the people we take for granted. It’s exciting when you meet someone
new, and you often put your best face on for these novel individuals. It is very hard to be
at your best for those closest to you. In a better world, it wouldn’t be this way. It seems
like we should try to demonstrate to those closest to us that they are the most important;
yet, in reality, this doesn’t seem to be the way things work.
I don’t think I could ever thank Mary Davidson enough for everything that she has
done for me in life. She is my biological aunt, but she is my adopted mother. This book is
about grit, toughness, determination, and caring. Those are things I learned from her. She
is not the kind of person who cares about image over substance. She is also not the kind
of person who will turn her back on you no matter what. I don’t think anyone else would
have stuck with me when I was floundering in my late teens and early 20s. I was only
good at one thing in life at that point…pissing things away and being a huge
disappointment. I don’t know why she didn’t give up on me, but she didn’t. You can’t repay
things like that. You can’t thank someone enough for things like that. The only thing you
can do is try to go out and show them that you were worth it. I think I’m doing that with
my life. I think I’m proving to her and to myself that it wasn’t a waste of her effort to stick
with me. I’d like to think that I’ve become someone worthy of being on this planet. I feel
like I’ve gotten to the point where I can give something back to other people. This book is
for you, my mother.
It seems like there is some form of judgment day in most religions, where you’re
deemed worthy of being admitted to the desirable afterlife, or if you’re being caste out into
the wastelands for eternity. I don’t know about any of that stuff. Personally, I think that if
there is some all-powerful being out there, it’s pretty petty of them to care about whether
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I believe in them or not…have a little faith in yourself there, Almighty. What do you care if I
believe in you or not…believe in your damn self. That’s what I had to do in my life. I had to
judge myself of being worthy of life. Once I was able to judge myself accordingly, I set out
standards for myself to live up to. My standards are harsh. My standards are high. My
standards are not for the weak. I’m not all powerful. In fact I’m a pretty average person
when you really get down to it. I’m not tall, or gifted, or good looking, or all that athletic. I
just simply won’t give up on myself, no matter what. I will survive being a drunk. I will
survive being a drug addict. I will survive being fired from what I thought was my dream
job. I will survive insults from other people. I will survive not getting what I want. I will
survive not being liked. I will survive MASS. I will survive MASS 2. I will survive life. I will
survive today.
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Quick Program
Guide
147
Phase 1:
Day 1
The 30/30…Choose ten exercises. Perform all ten exercises for three rounds in a circuit
format. Go through the circuit three times. You have a 30 second work window and a 30
second rest window to get to the next exercise. During the 30 second work window, you
are trying to get 15 reps at the exercise. If you complete the 15 reps before the 30 seconds
is done, stop and move on to the next exercise. Your goal is to try to get 15 reps at each
exercise for all three rounds, which would be 450 total repetitions.
Day 2
Movement prep (do whatever the hell you want in truth…just prepare)
Glycolytic warm-up
We used to run 2, 300-yard shuttles with 2 min rest at Springfield
I’ve been having people do some glycolytic rowing in the place where I am now
1.
Row 150 meters, rest 1 min
2.
Row 250 meters, rest 90 seconds
3.
Row 350 meters
There is no prescribed rest between the end of the warm-up and the start of Triphasic.
Collect yourself. Set up your equipment. Start. Take your time, but hurry up.
Triphasic:
5 x 2 @ 80-88% with a 6 second eccentric
Squat or dead (I highly recommend the squat…I think it makes way more sense here)
Box Jump x 4
Jump w/weight x 4
Long Jump x 4
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There is no prescribed rest between sets or between finishing the squat/dead and the
bench. Let your breathing come back to normal…feel completely ready. It should take at
least 2 to 3 minutes to recover between sets and exercises.
Bench or Incline Bench
@ 88% with 6 second eccentric
Pull-up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a lat pulldown or something else you can do
explosively
Plyo-Push Up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a bench
Med Ball Throw x 4…if you’ve got a wall, chest throw, otherwise slam it into the ground
There is no prescribed rest between finishing your main lift and starting your assistance.
Put your weights away, and set up what you’re going to do.
Assistance:
3 x 8…no timing, work at your own pace
Single arm dumbbell row
Step ups
Biceps
Triceps
Delts
Day 3
Movement prep…I don’t care what you do…get yourself ready
Plyo-primer
a.
2 foot lateral pogo (hop back and forth sideways over a line pretty fast) for 45
seconds
b.
1 foot lateral pogo, 45 seconds each leg
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Plyometrics and med-balls
x 2 rounds
c.
Box jumps x 8 (jump up, step down…put a bench next to your box)
d.
Med Ball slams x 10
Main Lift:
3 sets of 15…no timing, work at your own pace
1.
Bench Press or Incline Bench
2.
Squat or deadlift (I highly recommend squat)
Assistance Lift:
3 sets of 15…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. RFE Split Squat or FFE Split Squat
A2. Dumbbell row or Cable row
Accessory:
3 sets of 15…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. Curls
A2. Triceps
A3. Delts
Day 4
Movement prep
The Cajun…same exercises as original 30/30, but only 1 round
20 minutes of cardio
150
Phase 2:
Day 1
The 20/40
The 20/40 is a five exercise circuit. You go through the circuit 6 times. The circuit
involves a 20 second work window, and a 40 second rest window. During the 20 second
work window, the goal is to get 10 reps. If you finish the 10 reps before the 20 second
work window is done, stop, and move on to the next station with some additional rest. The
ultimate goal is to perform 300 total reps. With the 20/40, the rest between the rounds is
3 minutes. This amount of rest allows close to complete recovery after the first couple of
rounds, but by the last couple of rounds, it’s the fastest three minutes of your life. The
lower rep request and the longer inter-round rest period allow you to have a pretty good
bump in weight compared to phase 1. I personally recommend choosing the biggest 5
exercises you possibly can for this phase. Here’s the group that I think works best.
1. Deadlift
2. Bench press
3. Lat pulldown
4. Squat
5. Incline bench
Day 2:
I.
Movement prep (do whatever the hell you want in truth…just prepare)
II.
Glycolytic warm-up
a.
We used to run 2, 300-yard shuttles with 2 min rest at Springfield
b.
I’ve been having people do some glycolytic rowing in the place where I am
now
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c.
i.
Row 150 meters, rest 1 min
ii.
Row 250 meters, rest 90 seconds
iii.
Row 350 meters
If you have some other idea that fits into this concept, feel free to do it
i.
I think 3 hockey shifts on an Airdyne would work pretty well
ii.
If you don’t know what a hockey shift is…45 seconds on, 1:30 off
iii.
They are brutal
III.
Triphasic: 5 x 2 @ 80-88% with a 5 second isometric
IV.
Squat or Dead (I highly recommend the squat…I think it makes way more sense
here)
V.
a.
6 to 12” Hurdle Jump to Box Jump x 4
b.
Jump w/weight x 4
c.
6 to 12” Hurdle Jump to Long Jump x 4
Bench or Incline Bench @ 88% with a 5 second isometric
a.
Pull-up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a lat pulldown or something else you
can do explosively
VI.
b.
Altitude Drop Push Up x 4
c.
Med-ball Slam x 4
Assistance: 3 x 8…no timing, work at your own pace
a.
Single arm dumbbell row
b.
Step ups
c.
Biceps
d.
Triceps
e.
Delts
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Day 3
I.
Movement prep…I don’t care what you do…get yourself ready
II.
Plyo-primer
a. 2 foot lateral pogo (hop back and forth sideways over a line pretty fast) for 55
seconds
b.1 foot lateral pogo, 55 seconds each leg
III.
Plyometrics and med-balls x 2 rounds
a. Box jumps x 8 (jump up, step down…put a bench next to your box)
b. Med Ball slams x 10
IV.
Main Lift: 3 sets of 10…no timing, work at your own pace
VII.
Bench Press or Incline Bench
VIII.
Squat or Deadlift (I highly recommend squat)
V.
Assistance Lift: 3 sets of 10…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. RFE Split Squat or FFE Split Squat
A2. Dumbbell row or Cable row
VI.
Accessory: Stato-dynamic effort method with 3-0-3 tempo, 3 sets
A1. Push-up x 10
A2. Squat or dead x 10 (if you squatted, then deadlift, or vice versa)
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Day 4
Training day four of phase 2 is going to be another Cajun cooking day. This time
you’re going to be introduced to the Cajun 20/40. The concept is pretty simple, as it’s the
20/40 protocol with 3 rounds instead of 6, and 4 minutes rest between rounds instead of
3. You want to have your chance to go H.A.M.…here you go. Naturally, I want you to get all
150 reps, but here’s your chance to go someplace real dark. You should have a pretty good
idea about how heavy you can go with this. You’ll have already done an original recipe
20/40 earlier in the week, and your previous training day was 3 sets of 10 with some of
the exercises that you’ll be using again here. The weight should be somewhere in between
what your original recipe 20/40 was and what your 3 sets of 10 weight was. In my mind,
this is some mighty fine Cajun cooking with this protocol. You’ll be crispy and blackened
from the hot fire that you’re going to jump in here. In all honesty, I think this might be my
favorite workout in the world. There’s something ridiculously savage about this specific
protocol. You get an endorphin and adrenaline rush that is somewhat unrivaled with this
one right here. So have at it…use the same exercises as your previous 20/40, go heavier,
enjoy that one extra minute of rest, and the three fewer rounds. At the end of this, I would
again like to see you do 20 minutes of cardiorespiratory exercise.
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Phase 3:
Day 1:
I.
Movement Prep: Do whatever you need to do to prepare yourself
II.
Plyo Prep & Med Ball
III.
1.
2 Foot Lateral Pogo x 45 seconds
2.
1 Foot Lateral Pogo x 45 seconds each
3.
Med Ball Slams x 10
Main Lift: Deadlift/Squat & Bench/Incline Bench (Estimate 70%, 75%, or 80% of your
max squat/deadlift (over 500 pounds, 70%, over 400 pounds, 75%, under 400 pounds use
80%)
*** Note that you can rack the weight during the 2 minutes as many times as you need to
if you are benching or squatting
- Bench or Incline Bench for 2 minutes…get as many reps as you can in that time
- Rest 4 minutes
- Bench or Incline for 2 minutes
- Rest 4 minutes
- Bench or Incline for 2 minutes…done
NEXT…
- Deadlift or Squat (I highly recommend the squat) for 2 minutes…get as many reps as you
can in that time
- Rest for 4 minutes…
- Repeat as prescribed for upper body
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IV.
Assistance (2 rounds each)…take as much rest as you want between rounds. Your
arms are going to be thumping…let them come back to reality before trying to repeat. I
think I usually take at least 3 to 4 minutes between doing these.
1. The Arm Farm…do not put the Dumbbells Down
- Seated DB French Press x 10
- 2 Hand Simultaneous Curls x 10
- Lying Skull Crushers x 10
- Palms up on the up, palms down on the down Curls x 10
- Cheat Hammer Curls x 10
- Military Press x 10
- Flat Bench Press x 10
2. Delt Domination
- Front Raises x 10
- Lateral Raises x 10
- Bent Over Row w/rear delt lateral sweep x 10 (this is basically a wide row)
- Military Press x 10
- Incline Press x 10
- Bent Over Row x 10
Day 2:
I.
Movement prep (do whatever the hell you want in truth…just prepare)
II.
Glycolytic warm-up
a.
We used to run 2, 300-yard shuttles with 2 min rest at Springfield
b.
I’ve been having people do some glycolytic rowing in the place where I am
now
i.
Row 150 meters, rest 1 min
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c.
ii.
Row 250 meters, rest 90 seconds
iii.
Row 350 meters
If you have some other idea that fits into this concept, feel free to do it
i.
I think 3 hockey shifts on an Airdyne would work pretty well
ii.
If you don’t know what a hockey shift is…45 seconds on, 1:30 off
iii.
They are brutal
III.
Triphasic: 5 x 2 @ 80-88%
IV.
Squat or Dead (I highly recommend the squat…I think it makes way more sense
here)
V.
a.
Depth Box Jump x 4
b.
Jump w/weight x 4
c.
Depth Long Jump x 4
Bench or Incline Bench @ 88% with a 5 second isometric
a.
Pull-up x 4…if you’re super weak, use a lat pulldown or something else you
can do explosively
VI.
b.
Depth Push Up x 4
c.
Med-ball Slam x 4
Assistance: 3 x 8…no timing, work at your own pace
a.
Single arm dumbbell row
b.
Step ups
c.
Biceps
d.
Triceps
e.
Delts
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Day 3:
Movement prep…I don’t care what you do…get yourself ready
II. Plyo-primer
A. 2 foot lateral pogo (hop back and forth sideways over a line pretty fast) for 60
seconds
B. foot lateral pogo, 60 seconds each leg
III. Plyometrics and med-balls x 2 rounds
A. Box jumps x 8 (jump up, step down…put a bench next to your box)
B. Med Ball slams x 10
IV. Main Lift: 3 sets of 8…no timing, work at your own pace
A. Bench Press or Incline Bench
B. Squat or deadlift (I highly recommend squat)
VII. Assistance Lift: 3 sets of 8…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. RFE Split Squat or FFE Split Squat
A2. Dumbbell row or Cable row
VIII. Accessory: 3 sets…no timing, work at your own pace
A1. Biceps x 8
A2. Triceps x 8
A3. Delts x 8
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Day 4:
The fourth training day for phase 3 is another Cajun workout. This one is real
messed up. You’re going to take the 20/40 exercises. You’re going to load them with your
20/40 weights. And you’re going to try to complete a 30/30 based workout with this set
up. So try to get 15 reps at all the stations in the 30 second work window. You will be
performing three rounds of this, and you get 5 minutes rest between the rounds. Do not
underestimate how absolutely terrible this is going to be. Of all the Cajun based workouts,
this one is the absolute most crispy. My recommendation on how to do this right is as
follows. The first time you do this, use your 20/40 load. I haven’t been able to come close
to finishing with that weight, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the most out of
doing it from a gains perspective. What I’ve found is that the best way to approach this
one is to lower the weight if you don’t get it the next time you do it. Now how much you
lower the weight is going to be dependent on how close you get. Personally, I was in single
digit reps on some of the stations in the third round, so I had to drop weight quite a bit.
You want to try to dial this in to find what you can actually do. If you manage to finish this
with 15 at every station, increase the weight. At the end of this workout, as was the case
with the previous Cajun workouts, please perform 20 minutes of moderate intensity
cardiorespiratory exercise.
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Phase 4:
Phase 4, week 1, A day, breaks down as follows…
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 5 sets of 5 @ 82%, 60 seconds between A1. and A2., 90 seconds between A2.
and A1.
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Hamstring curls (machine preferably, if not, slideboard or ball) x 8
A2. DB single arm row x 8
A3. Single leg dead x 8
A4. Lat-pulldown/Pull-ups x 8
Phase 4, week 1, B day, breaks down as follows…
I Movement Prep
II Main Lift: 5 sets of 5 @ 82%, same timing as A day
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Turkish Get-Up x 3 each arm
A2. DB single arm row x 8
A3. Single leg squat x 8
A4. Lat pulldown/Pull-ups x 8
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Phase 4, week 2, A day breaks down as follows.
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 6 sets of 3 reps @ 88%, 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Hamstring curls x 6
A2. Biceps x 10
A3. Single leg dead x 6
A4. Triceps x 10
Phase 4, week 2, B day breaks down as follows.
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 6 sets of 3 reps @ 88%...same timing protocol as A day
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Turkish Get-Up x 3
A2. Biceps x 10
A3. Single Leg Squats x 6
A4. Triceps x 10
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Phase 4, week 3, A day breaks down as follows.
I. Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 8 sets of 2 reps @ 92%, with 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3 sets
A1. Hamstring curls x 6
A2. Single Arm DB Row x 6
A3. Single Leg Dead x 6
A4. Lat Pull-down/Pull-ups x 6
Phase 4, week 3, B day breaks down as follows.
I Movement Prep
II Main Lift: 8 sets of 2 @ 92%, with 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline Bench
III. Assistance x 3
A1. Turkish Get-ups x 3
A2. Single Arm DB Row x 6
A3. Single Leg Squat x 6
A4. Lat Pull-down/Pull-ups x 6
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Phase 4, week 4, A day breaks down as follows.
I Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 10 sets of 1 @ 95%, with 60 seconds between A1 and A2, and 90 seconds
between A2 and A1
A1. Squat
A2. Bench
III. Assistance x 3
A1. Hamstring curls x 6
A2. Curls x 8
A3. Single Leg Dead x 6
A3. Triceps x 8
Phase 4, week 4, B day breaks down as follows.
I Movement Prep
II. Main Lift: 10 sets of 1 @ 95%, same timing element as A day
A1. Deadlift
A2. Incline Bench
III. Assistance x 3
A1. Turkish Get-Ups x 3
A2. Curls x 8
A3. Single Leg Squat x 6
A3. Triceps x 8
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Thriving on
Judgement Day
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MASS 1 was destruction. MASS 2 is different. It is more Pat. MASS 1 one was an old
school, dark alley beat down. If you are reading this you finished the fight. You took your
licks and are better for it. If you look at Pat’s life, he made you earn your stripes into his
inner circle. MASS 2 is that circle. Welcome. Do not take it lightly.
I know I don’t. Pat is someone who I had an immediate connection with, I think because of
our pasts. He walks in a room and you can tell he is loved and also respected. Having him
in your corner makes you better. Just taking on MASS, you can feel his presence holding
you accountable.
I grew up in one of the worst cities in America. My house got robbed four times before I
was 16. In the recession, our copper gutters got ripped off our house while we were
sleeping. Everyone took what they wanted. It was a dog eat dog world. It was normal. All I
knew. I stole everything until I turned 19 and my brother got pinched. Didn’t matter
deodorant, toothbrushes or TVs; we took it. Just to feel alive and just because we could,
and we were good at it. But, that wasn’t the most eerie part of my childhood. To this day I
can’t shake the image of staring out the window watching my mom trying to stop a knife
fight between two rival gangs. Washed out graffiti on a brick wall behind her. She pushed
open the screen door right into the middle of it, yelling. Tugging at them until flashing
lights came. In my 6 year old mind, I didn’t even think this was odd. I don’t even remember
being scared.
Many humans have grown up in far shittier situations than me. Some make it out. Some
don’t. Through it all I always knew I had it made. I was loved unconditionally and we
always had food on the table. My parents never stopped fighting this dark side of our
world with love and compassion and if you look back at the lives of most of the people
they interacted with – they won.
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No matter where you come from in MASS 2, you get a seat at the table, but you keep it
with your effort, your daily actions.
Don’t get it twisted, MASS 2 is still a punch in the dick. This program will make you
question your very existence, but it is more tactical, more refined, more lethal, and a
program you could do for years and still see results.
John Connor: We’re not gonna make it, are we? People, I mean.
The Terminator: It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves.
MASS 2 is an operating system more than a program, and my job is to make it as clear,
efficient, and effective as possible.
In MASS 1, I was trying to mitigate the damage, to increase the chances of completion,
survival, and thus adaptation.
MASS 2 is different. There is more flexibility on my side of the ball, and that means I get to
play a little bit more and I am jacked up about it.
On the exercise science side, I’m not as smart as guys like Pat Davidson, James Cerbie, Cal
Dietz, Mike T Nelson, or Aaron Davis. I never will be, as this isn’t really what lights me on
fire. I don’t give a fuck about the degree of MTORC1 activation from 2 or 4 sets of 8 (I don’t
think many of them do either). I also don’t really give a fuck about the degree of internal
rotation of your 4th rib on an incline bench press. I know all that shit is important, but what
keeps me up at night is seeing the big picture. Flying over the forest with a helicopter,
finding the parts of the ecosystem that aren’t thriving and then taking samples of the
vegetation, the soil, and the water and figuring out the problem before it threatens the
entire organism. I have consulted with 100s, probably 1000s, of athletes, most just like
you. What follows are the ten most common aspects that threaten your capacity to
progress. To adapt. To thrive on Judgement Day.
1.
Not Eating Enough.
2.
Not Eating Like An Adult
3.
Not Sleeping Enough.
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4.
Not Drinking Enough.
5.
Not Relaxing Enough AKA Being a Stressed Out Ping Pong Ball of a Human.
6.
Not Sitting At The Grown-Up Table AKA Improper Meal Hygiene
7.
Not Getting Outside.
8.
Not Having Any Fun.
9.
Not Socializing, Having a Community, or Any Human Touch.
AND
10.
Not Having a Fucking Purpose.
I will touch on all of these in the following pages, but I think the last one is really the most
important.
“Our purpose determines who we are.”
-Gary Keller
The baby boomer generation got fed a hell of a story. Work your ass off and have it all in
retirement. I watched my grandpa grind as a journeyman electrician for all my youth. He
drank, ate, fished, and fucked with electricity.
He retired. Watched Cubs games and fished. Once he couldn’t fish, he died.
My grandpa never had a purpose. He didn’t have the luxury of thinking about this kind of
hippie nonsense. He was a marine. He worked from sun-up to sun-down pretty much all
his life. He put food on the table and took care of my father and my grandmother the best
way he knew how. And this gave my father a chance to break the cycle.
My father drank, ate, fished, and fucked with computers. He gave up drinking when I was
three and I said to him late one night, “Dad I don’t like it when you drink.” He hasn’t
touched a drop since. That was step one. Step two happened in his mid-forties. He had
been reading about religion all his life. He went to grad school at the University of Virginia
to study ancient religion. In college, he translated the bible into English from Hebrew. But,
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in the end he quit. When I was in high school, he started researching and reading
everything in he could get his hands on related to Buddhism. A book eventually said that
he had to stop reading and start doing. Find a Zen Center and walk through the door. He
did and in the following years, he found his passion.
He found his sustenance. He found what drives him. Helping others wake up. That is my
Father’s ONE Thing. It emanates from his very being and in his moment to moment
actions.
What is your ONE THING?
Pat talks a lot about his ONE THING in MASS 2 and it bleeds through every page.
This ideology is from Gary Keller’s Book called, you guessed it the ONE THING.
Read it.
I have been sitting with this question a lot lately. What is my ONE thing from a
professional vantage?
After the idea of being a professional athlete died, I used to want to know everything
about health and physical adaptation. I still do, but to know everything (which is obviously
unattainable…maybe) I came to the realization at the end of grad school that very few
researchers were studying my people. I also realized that academia was way too slow and
polite for me to have any type of future there.
Sometimes I see myself at a laptop in a fancy office overlooking lots of erudite buildings
and then I remember the S&M feeling of institutional red tape and the relentless funding
and ass kissing game. I wake up, put on board shorts, sometimes a shirt, and walk over to
my computer in a bonified closet and I start punching keys.
What is my ONE THING?
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To build a Strength and Conditioning and “Health” Mecca without any outside financial
help (no conflicts of interest). I will make this happen, the momentum now is too fierce.
There is an undertow pulling this thing together, out to sea.
I will build a place where humans who live the Iron life can live it at an entirely new level
and then I will watch, listen, and collect data.
The fundamentals of sleep, circadian rhythms, nutrition, and stress reduction/change of
perception are necessary and in your face all the time here. The equipment is nice, but not
all shiny and shit. This isn’t a fuck you type money complex. This is Blue Collar with a
splash of Fight Club and a 360 degree backdrop of Jungle and Ocean. It is hard to get here.
It is up a single lane rock road you can’t pass without a 4x4. It isn’t for everyone.
Good.
This place isn’t fully built yet, it won’t be for years, but it is close to being operational and
that’s just dangerous.
I am tired or being tired of all this incessant chatter about “health” and “fitness” so I will
just build a place that rumbles, “Put Up or Shut Up.”
I hope one day you see it. But, in all honesty I don’t really care. That’s on you, not me. I
know what I have to do today, tomorrow, and the next day.
Do you?
What is your ONE THING?
If you don’t know it. Your job is to figure that out in the next 16 weeks.
If you do know it. It’s time to execute.
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Whether your purpose jumped off the page at you or you have no idea, take a few minutes
and go through the following exercise.
What is your someday ONE thing?
What is your one year ONE thing?
What is your four month ONE thing?
What is your one month ONE thing?
What is your one week ONE thing?
What is Today’s ONE thing?
What is Right Now’s ONE Thing?
Here is an example…
My Someday ONE thing?
Live 8 to 9 Months in Costa Rica and 3 to 4 in Sand Bay and Austin.
My One Year ONE thing.
Finish Retreat Center by 3/18/18.
My Four month ONE thing?
Have the main Retreat Center enclosed and working on interior by the time I leave to go to
NYC (10/31).
One Month ONE thing?
Finish Entrance House/Gym and Move on to The Retreat Center (5/31).
One Week ONE thing?
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Finish the roof to the deck for Steph's yoga space.
Today's ONE thing?
Finish the Gym.
Right now ONE Thing?
Lift and Move all the equipment out of the way for cleaning and set-up.
These are big ideas drilled down into the now. Use this exercise to frame what is most
important right now so you don’t get lost in the endless checklists of urgent unimportant
to-dos.
Yet, our daily habits are not to be overlooked. They bring these big ideas into reality and
your training may not seem like a large part of this schematic, but I assure you it is;
because for most of us reading this book, training is our anchoring habit. It is the aspect of
our lives that keeps us caring about everything else.
Our time in the weight room gives meaning to all the other habits we know we have to
guard to give us a fighting chance at what we want…results. And this care for the little
things and daily habits ripples through every aspect of our lives, and it is so strong that it
can propel us towards our purpose. The only thing we have to do is drive the ship.
Think back to Pat’s story about Ethan. I don’t think I could think of someone who better
exemplifies this ideology. I have worked with Ethan for two years now. The man is
relentless in thinking big and acting small. He knows where he wants to go and he knows
exactly what he needs to do right now to get there. He has built the habits so that what
he does is no longer a choice. It just is. No part of his life is reliant on will power. He is the
human version of Judgement Day, which is ironic because his goal is to win his PRO card
and be the best bodybuilder that ever lived. He already sees it. He can taste it and no one
in that world will see him coming. But, I promise you they will remember his name when
he arrives.
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Let MASS 2 be the foothold that helps you change your life. This journey is more than just
sets and reps, this is a chance to break the cycles of every generation before you, that
didn’t have the opportunity, nor the time to ask this ONE question.
What is my purpose? What is my ONE thing?
With this ebook I am also going to give you the tools that I use to track and hold myself
accountable on every front because…
What gets measured, gets managed.
Here are the three habits that I have found most helpful on the purpose and personal
development side.
1.
Meditate or practice some form of mindfulness for at least 10 minutes a day. This
is the duration that the research says is most likely to stick. If you have never sat with
your thoughts before, I recommend guided meditation for the first month, but after that
you should work to take the training wheels off and sit in silence. I sit for 11 minutes a day
and am currently on a 171 day streak. If I miss a day I have to pay $100 to the rain forest.
I have given up meditation twice in my life. The first time, I became a raging alcoholic and
the second time I almost pissed away my marriage. This is why it is number one for me.
2.
Read at least five pages of a professional development book every day. This is
actually a principle I adapted from the Slight Edge and it really does set the tone. Usually
you will read more than 5 pages, but if you always have a book going, you will finish one
every 4 to 6 weeks. Aim for one a phase. In my opinion, this category of literature is best
read and reread slowly with the time to implement and digest the tactics contained. I have
met people who blow through tons of these books every year and their lives are
constantly being reinvented. It’s annoying and exhausting. Whether you have or have not
read it, start with the ONE Thing in Phase 1 and then I would move to Turning Pro and Do
The Work by Steven Pressfield in Phase 2. Below is a list of a few more to get you started.
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Yes, a lot of them say the same thing. Who cares, the message is important to hear over
and over again and will keep you digging forever deeper into what matters.
• The Warrior Ethos
• The Slight Edge
• Dare to Win
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• Better Than Before
• Getting Naked
• Switch
• To Sell is Human
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Mastery
• 59 Seconds
• The Greatest Salesman in the World
• Quiet
• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
Spend at least five minutes writing or journaling a day. Yes, I just asked a bunch of
meatheads to journal. But, if you are reading this I know you are not the normal meathead
that eats curls super-setted with chicken breasts. Not only do you train like you give a
shit, but you are an intellectual. I started writing when I was 21 and I shoot for 15 minutes
every day. It usually turns into much longer, but setting the timer for 15 minutes gets the
momentum rolling. Sometimes, I stop after 15 minutes and start to answer emails,
sometimes I don’t stop for hours. My life is a lot more worthwhile when I reach this state
of flow compared to answering digital questions about ketones. If you don’t like writing,
you could do free thought talking into a voice memo. The point is not to stop, and to see all
the thoughts that bubble up from your mind. Imagine if you went and did everything you
thought about, your life would be a weird grown-up version of Chuckie Cheese. I am asking
for five minutes.
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If you take these three habits together it is about 20 to 25 minutes of your day.
Give it a shot and let it stick. I know you won’t be disappointed, but it won’t be all rainbows
and cupcakes either. Life isn’t like that, but these habits will help you create a gap with
others and yourself. They will help you stay the course when the seas are choppy and
really enjoy the waves, if you decide to let loose.
Ok I beat that dead horse, dead.
But, I also built you tracking excel sheets for every phase of MASS and here is a video of
me going over how to use them. Download them here or don’t.
Now, let’s move on to the real reasons you bought this part of MASS.
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1.Not Eating Enough.
When I lecture about nutrition I always revolve around the nuances of three key principles.
Ā Quantity Ā Quality
!Ā Timing
If you are taking on MASS or MASS 2 you probably want to get bigger.
Yea. Umm. Thanks.
None of that happens if you don’t eat enough. However, the bigger we are after does not
involve, a FUPA that rests on your upper thighs. Feeling out nutritional quantity, is an art.
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But, we aren’t as variable as we would like to think and this chapter will give you the
starting point and the tools to adjust course throughout the next 16 weeks.
Yo, Bro how much bigger can I get?
The upper limit is probably a Fat Free Mass Index of somewhere around 25. I hover around
23.5 to 24 and am not on gear (I have nothing against this and will actually touch on this
briefly throughout this book – it changes most, but not all of the rules).
Some social media phenoms claim to live at 27.89 naturally. I 100% believe there are those
people, but for the vast majority of us, somewhere around 25 will be our upper limit. Also,
please do not give me an FFMI based off caliper measurements. On calipers, I am always
around 6% body fat, on seven site ultrasound I am a little over 8%. As much as I like fiction, I
live at 10.5-12% body fat.
As a grad student in a metabolic lab, I have been MRIed, BODPODed, and DEXAed more
than any human ever should. Thus, if you want to know how much more you potentially
have in the tank, shop around and get a DEXA measurement and then calculate your
FFMI. I think it is a phenomenal idea to get this data pre and post MASS 2. It will hold you
accountable and the 16 week time domain is more than sufficient to see significant
change. If you don’t have access to a DEXA, you could use pictures and measurements
(Chest, Shoulders, Neck, Mid-Bicep, Waist, Mid-Thigh, and Calf). Or better yet do both,
these will all help hold you accountable.
All of the FFMI heresy above is not to say I am not clawing for every extra ounce of muscle
I can put on my frame and that you shouldn’t either. Just because a task is hard doesn’t
mean you give up. You bear down, everything starts to matter, and that is what sets this
population apart.
That is the life we chose to lead.
If you have been training for a decade I think putting on 3 to 4 pounds of muscle in 16
weeks naturally is a hail-fucking-mary. But, I am a Packer fan and we love watching Aaron
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Rodgers heave that shit into the rafters, but in order to have any chance of getting this
done you are going to need an energy surplus.
And now you probably have the question – well how much?
To begin to answer this question, we will pay homage to the literal Doctor of Hypertrophy,
Brad Schoenfeld.
“In well-trained subjects, evidence suggests that a positive energy balance of 500 to 1,000
kcal/ day is preferable for increasing fat-free mass. The discrepancy between populations
can be attributed to the fact that untrained subjects have a higher hypertrophic potential
and faster rate of growth than trained subjects do, which accommodates more energy and
substrate for building new tissue.”
If you are NUBE you can get away with murder. It is an absolutely annoying time that
plagues our industry and allows uneducated delinquents to bumble around for decades
thinking they know something. If you are knocking at the door of something actually
meaningful, everything gets harder. Revel in the challenge, it’s what brought us all here.
And remember everyone is always watching. Lead from the front and other humans will
follow. It is the only real way to promote change.
So if stacking on muscle is our number one priority, we are looking to run hot at an excess
of somewhere around 500 to 1000 kcals a day. But, we are going to tweak that just a bit
because here is the thing, when you perform MASS 1 type workouts, you are famished.
Ravenous. You know exactly what I am talking about. You want to eat everything ever
invented. That’s ok, we are going to build in a surplus on those days to account for that
and then drop down a bit on the three non-training days (or whatever split you use). So
we will shoot for a hefty surplus on training days (we will start at 500 kcals) and then drop
it down to a little above maintenance on non-training days. There is no need for us to
finger through grains of rice on this program. Just get close, consistently. Also, we will
drop down on the OFF days primarily through reducing carbohydrate content which
makes the diet more feasible because we will keep your fat constant. Don’t scalp me, you
won’t even be in the same area code of anything considered “low carb”.
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So in reality, we are shooting for an average surplus of 300 to 400 kcal a day and
depending on your weight and how close you are to your genetic potential, maybe 1 to 1.5
pounds of weight gain per month. It is important to note, that you could blow through this
surplus with increased activity throughout the day which does happen when energy
intake is increased. Thus, if you aren’t creeping up on the scale and your biceps aren’t
breaking tank tops – take the food quantity up even higher.
To check ourselves thus far, let’s look at the view of Alan Aragon, the gatekeeper of
BroScience.
“The size of the targeted surplus depends on individual training status, degree of NEAT, as
well as the nature of the training program itself. Novices, those with high NEAT levels, and
those with highly intensive or voluminous training programs tend to gain less fat with
more aggressive caloric surpluses (roughly 400-800 kcal/day). Trained individuals closer to
their potential for leanness or muscle mass tend to gain less fat on smaller surpluses
(200-400 kcal/day), unless their NEAT levels indicate otherwise.”
You can see we aren’t veering too far off the rails with some MLM shake program. That
isn’t MASS, which can really be summed up much better by Pat than me.
“I break the rules people, but I know the rules. State troopers get to speed on the
highway.”
In this case, we need to start by following the rules, because blowing through them may
leave you with a man muffin hanging over the edge of your newly minted skinny jeans.
That said, some gentlemen may chew right through this surplus and need to average
closer to an excess of 800 or 1,000 kcals a day. Again, if you are not gaining or are even
going down, don’t be afraid to speed. No one is pulling you over on the back roads that are
MASS.
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Cool story, we have our surplus…but how do we figure out all the rest of this macro
calculus?
Well, the real problem with all this is that thermodynamics are not a stable elementary
school math problem. The only constant is there is no constant. You take your calories up
and your body compensates with higher NEAT and TEF. You take them down and again
your body compensates with lower NEAT, and if you do it long enough a plethora of other
mechanisms kick in as well. You even take your exercise calories up and your body finds a
way to regulate that. It is the ultimate compensator, relentlessly seeking out homeostasis
and our job is to move that needle. To do this we will need to be just as uncompromising.
Thus, we first have to figure out where homeostasis is or how many calories you need to
maintain your weight.
This is what I want you to figure out in the first one to two weeks of MASS 2. How much
food you can destroy and stay weight stable?
I have had multiple metabolic ward type studies running MASS with substantially large
and jacked human males and my guess is that if you are between 175 and 205 lbs, you will
be in the neighborhood of 3000-3500 kcals a day. However, if you coach 37 clients a day in
between spin classes and being a waiter, I have no fucking idea (but, it actually might not
even matter because regardless of daily activity humans seem to operate within a tight
species and individually regulated TDEE window.)
Your job in the first week is to weigh (grams or ounces) and measure everything you put in
your mouth.
If you are 175 – start around 3000 kcals and see what happens. If you stick it at this many
calories. Start taking your training days up to around 3500 kcals based on the templates in
the back of this book. If you lose weight in this week take yourself up to 3200 kcals on
maintenance and 3700 kcals on Training Days. If you gain weight at 3,000, back off or buy
a pedometer.
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If you are 185 – start around 3200 kcals and see what happens. If you stick it at this many
calories. Start taking your training days up to around 3700 kcals based on the templates in
the back of this book. If you lose weight in this week take yourself up to 3400 on
maintenance and 3900+ kcals on Training Days. If you gain weight at 3,200, back off a bit
or buy a pedometer.
If you are 195 – start 3400 and see what happens. If you stick it at this many calories.
Start taking your training days up to around 3900 kcals based on the templates in the
back of this book. If you lose weight in this week take yourself up to 3600 on maintenance
and 4100+ kcals on Training Days. If you gain weight at 3,400, back off a bit or buy a
pedometer.
If you are 205 – start 3600 and see what happens. If you stick it at this many calories.
Start taking your training days up to around 4100 kcals based on the templates in the
back of this book. If you lose weight in this week take yourself up to 3800 on maintenance
and 4300 on Training Days. If you gain weight at 3,600, back off a bit or buy a pedometer.
If you are 181.6…shut the fuck up. Seriously, you’re smart, just cut the difference. I might
analyze your excrement through a microscope, but I am not going to wipe your ass.
For the first MASS trial, I annoyingly weighed and measured everything I ate for two
months. I hover around 185 and stayed weight stable at about 3100 -3200 on off days and
3400 -3500 on training days. All subjects so far have stayed weight stable at around 17 to
17.5 kcal per pound, which is about 1 to 1.5 kcal per pound more than Lyle McDonald’s
extremely thorough mathematical explanation of estimating total energy expenditure
across different body compositions with a constant activity factor of 30%. This relative
jump up to around 17.5 kcal per pound from 16 kcal per pound makes sense to me as
MASS type workouts are demanding to say the least. Also, subjects were active
throughout their time in the Jungle and averaging somewhere around 10,000 steps a day
is probably just a good idea all around, from a body composition and recovery standpoint.
Thus, if you are very active or just run at a higher RPM you may need to take this number
up, and if you get no steps – get off your ass.
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Some of you may wonder how the hell I got the numbers above. Well, I first used multiple
calculators and then I cooked and weighed all the food. Then I made sure the gorillas ate it,
while I collected all the data
175 lbs (10% BF)
Alan Aragon’s Lean Muscle Calculator – 2,887.5
Mifflin-St Jeor Formula – 1811 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 2,898
Harris-Bendict Formula – 1904 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 3,046
Eat To Perform Calculator – 2,908
Dr. Kevin Hall’s USDA SuperTracker – 2896
17.5 kcal/lb – 3,062.5
185 lbs (10% BF)
Alan Aragon’s Lean Muscle Calculator – 3,052
Mifflin-St Jeor Formula – 1,856 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 2,970
Harris-Bendict Formula – 1,967 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 3,147
Eat To Perform Calculator – 3,009
Dr. Kevin Hall’s USDA SuperTracker – 2968
17.5 kcal/lb – 3,238
195 lbs (10% BF)
Alan Aragon’s Lean Muscle Calculator – 3,218
Mifflin-St Jeor Formula – 1,902 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 3,043
Harris-Bendict Formula – 2,029 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 3,246
Eat To Perform Calculator – 3,110
Dr. Kevin Hall’s USDA SuperTracker – 3,041
17.5 kcal/lb – 3,413
205 lbs (10% BF)
Alan Aragon’s Lean Muscle Calculator – 3,383
Mifflin-St Jeor Formula – 1,947 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 3,115
Harris-Bendict Formula – 2,091 x 1.6 (moderate activity factor) = 3,346
Eat To Perform Calculator – 3,212
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Dr. Kevin Hall’s USDA SuperTracker – 3,113
17.5 kcal/lb – 3,587.5
It’s not magic. It is a clusterfuck of imperfect numbers and I have had plenty of clients who
defied this and all other logic. As a caveat, if you are geared out, theoretically you are going
to be able to take way higher excesses in kcals and turn it into lean mass. Theoretically.
Regardless of where you land based on your goals and your unique genetics, epigenetics,
and lifestyle, trying to create perfection in these systems is unhealthy. It’s called an eating
disorder. I just want you to be imperfectly precise throughout the next 16 weeks and get
the results you are looking for.
You can weigh and measure off the included meal plans or you could use something like
MyFitnessPal or some other macros/calorie counter. All of them are going to be
somewhat inaccurate, but the key in all this is precision and then measuring your
dependent variables for positive changes over time.
Some of you may want to get bigger and lose weight, this type of body composition
change can happen pretty naturally if you are coming into this a bit puffy, however if you
are under 12% bodyfat I wouldn’t plan on it or have it as a main goal. And if you want to get
photoshop shredded, I would honestly focus on dieting down slowly and find someone in
the body building world who has experience bringing people down into the single digits on
the body fat percentage side. Read stuff from guys like Eric Helms, Lyle McDonald, and
Alan Aragon just to name a few, this is their world.
Depending on your level of puffiness, if you are after weight loss, I would still use week 1
to assess what you need to maintain your weight and then stick to that on training days
and then on off days create a deficit of around 500 kcals. Which will give us around 2-3ish
lbs of weight loss per phase and my guess it will be more if food quality is high and you
are starting from a higher body fat percentage.
Also, remember that weight loss really isn’t that dependent on exercise activity
thermogenesis. It matters, but non-exercise activity thermogenesis and food matter
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exponentially more. Keep your protein high and adhere. That’s the show. And don’t forget
that you can easily blow your weekly deficit by housing four pounds of chicken wings and
five margaritas on a Saturday night. And I will say this, MASS doesn’t naturally select for
very good moderators, so pick your battles and avoidance may be the key to long-term
success. Nevertheless, it’s your life and you have to decide if abs are that important. But,
maybe not because if you are tracking and you are a guy who lifts you can generally be
pretty flexible in what you eat as long as you stay on the straight and narrow at least 90%
of the time.
Below I am going to give you the kcals and macros for maintaining, gaining, and leaning
down.
Finally!
You could jump from one to the other throughout this program or you could just ride the
Gains Train for all 16 weeks. You could run the first 8 weeks chasing Gains, take the next 4
on maintenance, and then lean down a bit in the last 4. It’s completely up to you. I have
lived this ideology, and I have personally ran through all of these patterns in my weight
bracket and they work. That said, everything I do doesn’t work for everyone all the time.
There are always outliers, but don’t call yourself an outlier unless you have really earned it
by being really honest with yourself and meticulously collecting data. If you do this, you
will have built the ability to individualize this even further. Go.
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175 lbs
MAINTENANCE
Average Kcals: 3000
Training Day Macros: 240 PRO – 360 CHO – 100 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 240 PRO – 200 CHO – 100 FAT
GAINS TRAIN
Average Kcals: ~3250-3300
Training Day Macros: 240 PRO – 400 CHO – 100 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 240 PRO – 200 CHO – 140 FAT
LEAN DOWN
Average Kcals: ~2750
Training Day Macros: 240 PRO – 320 CHO – 85 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 240 PRO – 200 CHO – 85 FAT
185 lbs
MAINTENANCE
Average Kcals: 3200
Training Day Macros: 255 PRO – 380 CHO – 105 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 255 PRO – 210 CHO – 105 FAT
GAINS TRAIN
Average Kcals: ~3450-3500
Training Day Macros: 255 PRO – 425 CHO – 105 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 255 PRO – 210 CHO – 145 FAT
LEAN DOWN
Average Kcals: ~2900
Training Day Macros: 255 PRO – 340 CHO – 90 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 255 PRO – 210 CHO – 90 FAT
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195 lbs
MAINTENANCE
Average Kcals: 3400
Training Day Macros: 265 PRO – 400 CHO – 115 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 265 PRO – 220 CHO – 115 FAT
GAINS TRAIN
Average Kcals: ~3650 - 3700
Training Day Macros: 265 PRO – 450 CHO – 115 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 265 PRO – 220 CHO – 160 FAT
LEAN DOWN
Average Kcals: ~3100
Training Day Macros: 265 PRO – 350 CHO – 100 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 255 PRO – 220 CHO – 100 FAT
205 lbs
MAINTENANCE
Average Kcals: 3600
Training Day Macros: 280 PRO – 420 CHO – 125 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 280 PRO – 230 CHO – 125 FAT
GAINS TRAIN
Average Kcals: ~3850 - 3900
Training Day Macros: 280 PRO – 475 CHO – 125 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 280 PRO – 230 CHO – 170 FAT
LEAN DOWN
Average Kcals: ~3300
Training Day Macros: 280 PRO – 375 CHO – 110 FAT
OFF Day Macros: 280 PRO – 230 CHO – 110 FAT
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As you can see it’s not rocket science. For every ten pound increase you get about 15
grams of protein, 20-25 grams more carbohydrate depending, and about 10ish more
grams of fat. And if you want to lean down we are going to lower carbs a bit on training
days and then take your fat to somewhere around 100 grams. One hundredish grams of
fat and 200+ grams of carbohydrate is more than most women get ever, so keep your
premenstrual complaints to yourself. Could it be a little uncomfortable on off days on the
LEAN DOWN program? Yes, but no one feels sorry for you, especially with the portions of
protein you will be eating to stay full and help minimize any chance of muscle loss.
Some may throw a hissy fit on the protein numbers. I don’t care. From my experience, if
you are reading this book and you consume animal flesh, you will eat that much protein
anyways. Dudes love protein, I don’t really see why people lose their minds when I give
them more protein. It’s like hey, “I want you to have more sex.” Or “the amount of sex you
are currently having and don’t count or think about having is healthy and beneficial - keep
it up.”
And then some 135 pound troll comments, “No having more sex will give you a zinc
deficiency.”
One, he is having zero sex, and two we have no idea if that is true. Mechanistically, it could
be possible as ejaculate does contain large amounts of zinc, but this zinc is derived from
prostate stores, not whole body stores. But, in order to run that study we would need a
highly sensitive biomarker that picks up marginal changes in total body zinc storage.
Another debatable topic. Then if this marginal lowering did exist, we would need to collect
long-term data showing a detriment in performance from having copious amounts of sex
to infer any type of causality. Ok, I’ll stop now.
The data clearly supports the fact that this high of protein intake is not going to hurt you
and it may even help you from the body composition side.
The only real negatives on the performance side that we have found to date are that you
might be so full that you can’t eat enough carbs or fat to get the job don or enough
vegetables to make me happy. The other negative is financial, but if you spent 80+ dollars
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on a 100 page ebook, I am going to guess that you are not eating mustard sandwiches in
the back of a mini-van.
Macro Tweaks:
Losing Weight Faster
If you are worried about getting puffy or want to accelerate your weight loss past what is
recommended. I get it. Here is the easiest solution I have thought of - treat the Cajun day
like an off day. It’s a baby bit of volume, followed by a walk – you don’t need all the carbs
to make that happen. If you are really, really worried you could also tweak the Alactic day
down as well. But, I would not fitsgimmel with the Development or Stim days, you are
going to want full portions. Keep in mind, your protein is still really high, but you may run
the risk of losing some LBM if you take you kcals down too far, your recovery might also go
to shit – so watch it.
I Need To ReFeed
This is essentially the opposite tweak as the first. On this tweak you would go with
leaning down slower by putting training day macros on one of the off days. This is
honestly my favorite approach and I put this “refeed” day before or after the Development
or Stim Day when most of us will tend to be most voracious.
I LOVE LOW CARB!!!
Cool. If you want to go lower carb on OFF days. I think you could plummet to 1 or 1.5 g/kg
on 3 to 4 days of the week (that’s probably somewhere around 100 grams). MASS 2 is not
quite as volume intensive as MASS 1, but you still want to show it some respect by having
2 or 3 higher carb days on the harder training days. If you love the low carb life. Go for it.
Just make sure you keep your calories up to snuff by eating an awkward amount of fat.
Also, if you do this you may want to make sure you are not a hyper-responder on the
blood lipid side. And if you want to read more, here is a great review about everything we
do and don’t know about carbohydrate need in humans who actually lifK.
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Hard Gainer Tweak
The final Macro Tweak is for those who aren’t gaining weight, even on the GAINS TRAIN.
Sorry, the answer is simple, you are going to have to eat more and maybe chew more and
optimize digestion. You may be one of those outliers that starts fidgeting 23.7 hours a day
when calories go up and there really isn’t a way around this as you are wired that way. The
only option we have is shoving more food down your throat. Enjoy it. To do this I would
first take a few or all of your OFF days to the surplus macros. Then if that doesn’t even
work start taking the training days up even more on the carb and the fat totals (going
higher in protein is very unlikely to help you).
There are plenty of us out there with thrifty metabolisms that can’t get away with a little
cheesecake B & E on a weekday afternoon post-training. But, there are some that can
walk away free and clear from first degree peanut butter homicide on the daily.
And this brings to the next potential road block on the food side of the equation.
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2.Not Eating Like An Adult
If you are reading this, I am guessing the only lift that may see a 25 pound plate at the
bottom is a military press and this means you are already pushing your genetic potential.
Remember the human body does NOT want to pack on more muscle, you have to
convince it that it is necessary for your survival and that the resources are readily
available to make this happen. This means you can’t wait until 3pm to have breakfast.
BUT, this also does not give you a get out of Jail Free card to face palm quarts of Ben and
Jerry’s because you are “bulking”.
My brother and I were in the grocery store when we were about 24. My brother is an ape
of a human, he is 6’3” and ran a 4.5 forty at 240 lbs with abs popping out the turtleneck he
never wore. This richy west-Austin Caucasian child was happily walking, almost skipping
down the freezer aisle with a pint o +HH
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In the last chapter, I put forth a mind-numbing amount of numbers. Some of you probably
loved it and dissected everything on those pages, others may have just immediately
started flipping down to the macro section.
Either way what you noticed was that I told you how much to eat, but I didn’t tell you what
to eat.
I am now going to turn all that number vomit into actual food in this chapter.
Most of my clients never see their macros. I don’t want them to think of food like I think of
food. It is a very weird existence. I wish my nutritional excel spreadsheet brain on no one.
Food is meant to be enjoyed, not micromanaged. It is social and intertwined with every
aspect of human culture. That said, you must weigh and measure and collect data for at
least the first two weeks of MASS 2 because if you are tearing after body comp results…
quantity matters, especially when you are trying to extract as much muscle mass change
as possible. There is no way around it, and that’s why we started there. Also, anytime you
are running the LEAN DOWN macro tweak, I recommend tracking. The brain really isn’t to
be trusted when you are taking away its energy teddy bear.
Also, don’t freak out if you aren’t losing weight immediately. You do a lot of damage during
MASS, so there will be a lot of transient water movement. Aldosterone (a
mineralocorticoid produced in the adrenal cortex) causes the retention of sodium in the
kidneys, saliva, sweat glands, and colon. Flashback to High School chemistry – water
follows salt. So activating the mineralocorticoid receptor will cause increased retention of
water. Cortisol also binds to the mineralocorticoid receptor, not just the glucocorticoid
receptor.
This means that being a stress ball can cause you to retain water. So if you look at the
scale every morning and start to lose your mind (more cortisol). You think you must just
have to…try HARDER (more cortisol). You cut your calories even more (more cortisol) and
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you add more exercise (more cortisol) and then you give up because this water retention is
masking all your weight loss. Don’t do any of that. You definitely don’t need more exercise
on MASS 2 and you likely don’t need more of a deficit. You may take a few days off training
because of life and BAM – you are down. It’s not magic. It’s science and water. You have a
plan and if you haven’t lost around 2 to 3 pounds in 6 to 8 weeks (if you are starting at a
higher body fat percentage you may lose weight much faster) then we adjust your deficit
down a bit and make sure your baseline level of movement is up to snuff.
If you are running the LEAN DOWN version or just want to track, you can decide if you
want to use an application like MyFitnessPal or just stick it with the meal plans I am
about to give you. It really doesn’t matter to me, just be consistent and adjust as needed
to make sure you are getting results.
I love numbers and have tracked everything as much as possible for the entirety of MASS
2. I think some people will walk this Type A tight rope and really benefit from it. I think
some will track for two weeks and then figure out the basic gist of what they need to eat
and do and adjust as needed to get great results. And then I think some people will just
read this, think they know what I am talking about, and not do any of it. And they still
might get great results, but more likely they will spend four, maybe six weeks baby deer
walking through this thing. Then they will quit and complain to their mom, “MASS 2
doesn’t even work. I went from a buck fifty to 148. The squats are going to hurt my back
and according to everything I read on the internet, there is too much pressing. And it hurts
when I pee.”
“Oh that’s nice hunny, go fucking kill yourself.”
I understand, I shouldn’t joke about suicide. I’m sorry.
My training partner, Coach Teo Ledesma, is in the group that won’t do any of this number
nonsense and will still see great results. He doesn’t listen. He has to come up with it as
his idea to really pay attention, and he would never ever count his food or log his
workouts. The only way the guy even followed some semblance of a plan was because I
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made him. I think he deleted the calculator app on his phone, but the man can rep out 3x
bodyweight deadlifts and 2x bodyweight squats…cold.
There are exceptions to every rule, most of us can’t break all of them, some of us can.
Know which category you are in and act accordingly. There is also no use spending mental
energy being agitated with those that have this ability. Assess what works for you and
destroy every last inch of it.
It should be noted that Teo moves around all day and has for all his life. He eats 90+% high
quality real food, sleeps like it’s his job, and plans a ton of fun into his weeks. He also has
a job and family he loves and smiles most of the time in between dickwad comments on
the internet. And I would without a second’s hesitation take all that over hitting your
macro numbers. But, some of us may not see results unless we play both sides of the ball.
Moving on…
Eating (living) like an adult comes down to the following three quotes.
“Eat food. Real food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
-Michael Pollan
“Dietary intelligence: Eat more of what is good for you and less of what is not. Experiment,
pay attention, and find what works for you.”
-Dan Millman
“Diet cannot work in isolation. Stress management, adequate sleep, protecting circadian
rhythms, and incorporating physical activity into your life are equally important.”
-Dr. Sarah Ballantyne
Before I give you the meal plans, here are three rules that if you crushed would allow you
to destroy the next 16 weeks and probably the rest of your dietary existence here on this
planet.
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1.
Eat at least two (preferably three) pounds of the best produce you have access to
everyday.
Fruits and vegetables are where nutrients live. Yes, it’s true you can get some necessary
b-vitamins from meat and a plethora of fat soluble and other vitamins if you eat organ
meats regularly (I don’t care what the Paleo bloggers say, no normal 21st century humans
do this). But, the vast majority of essential micronutrients that we have found to be
important up until now come from plants. AND there are more than 8,000 phytonutrients
contained in plants, most of which we don’t have names for, so anyone that tells you that
a multivitamin is the answer or that we have this whole nutritional conundrum figured
out is an idiot.
If there is one thing all the dietary zealots can agree on it is that the majority of our food
should come from plants. I want you to do that and then some. I want you to chomp
through the garden and still push your calories well above the 3k mark. You are going to
be pushing well above six pounds of food a day easy. Enjoy it. Seriously.
2.
Chew the living shit out of at least a pound or more of the best lean protein you
have access to every day and demolish one or two shakes to make sure you hit kcals in
four to five boluses a day.
Many folks in the nutrition community tend to get their panties in a bundle about protein
and carbohydrate timing. The veterans who have worked in the trenches and produced
research to analyze these bro questions will tell you that if you hit your amounts for the
day in four to five boluses, it is not going to matter. This is simple and it trumps
everything. If you eat four to five 30+ gram protein servings every day, you are going to
max out nitrogen balance and muscle protein synthesis. If you, eat your carb allotments
on these meal plans you are going to replenish glycogen in 24 hours regardless of if you
dry heave dextrose while squirming around on the floor after the development day.
Luckily, this giant fantastic meat suit that you drive around in is just not that fragile.
Plan ahead. Always have protein cooked and get the job done.
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3.
If you knock out the two rules above, the only thing left is to fill in the blanks on
carbs and fat.
This is relatively easy. On the carb side, plug and play with any type of fruit, white rice,
brown rice, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, white potatoes, plantains, yuca, or any other
carb source that you do well with. I am not going to bumble around in the world of gluten,
corn, soy, or beans. These food items are not the devil. They are not good and they are not
bad. They all have different contextual and individual risk/reward profiles. You know if
these items fire you up, and if they do, cut them out. On the fat side, you have the fat from
your high quality protein and then whatever is left, pour on avocado oil, olive oil, coconut
oil, macadamia nut oil or pile on some avocado, or spoon up some nut butters. You are
also going to take at least 1 TBS of fish oil a day, but we won’t count that in your macros,
because science says so. Ethan Grossman and I had a lengthy email conversation about
fat sources which you can check out here if you like that kind of nerdery.
The stage is set.
Here are your baseline meal plans. They are not commandments, just templates.
ďdI HHLH LK Ā H HHK I LKĀ
All meats and carb sources are cooked. All fruits and vegetables have been calculated off
raw values (which probably doesn’t even close to matter unless you are on the LEAN
DOWN plan).
Could you screw up your LEAN DOWN plan by guzzling down carrots? Maybe and this is
why I advocate you track everything on this version of the meal plan with MyFitnessPal or
some other calorie/macro counter.
Could you stomp your MAINTENANCE or GAINS TRAIN plan by eating too much chicken
breast or ar la? Unlikely.
Meal Plan Tweaks from the Maintenance to the GAINS TRAIN and the LEAN DOWN
If you are riding the GAINS TRAIN
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• Add 10 oz of Sweet Potato, 8 oz White Potato or Brown Rice, 6 oz of White Rice, 5 oz of
Plantains, or 4 oz of Yuca to your training day from the maintenance plan.
• Add 3 TBS of Oil to your OFF Day from the maintenance plan.
It’s that simple.
If you are running the LEAN DOWN
• Take away 10 oz of Sweet Potato, 8 oz White Potato or Brown Rice, 6 oz of White Rice, 5
oz of Plantains, or 4 oz of Yuca from your training day from the maintenance plan.
• Take away 1 TBS of Oil to your Training and OFF Day from the maintenance plan.
• The final tweak here is more of a suggestion. On your OFF days on the LEAN DOWN
program I would try to get all of your carbohydrates from vegetables with maybe one or
two servings of fruit. It is just three days of the week and this will keep your food
volume really really high on these lower calorie days.
It’s that simple.
We have the game plan, now let’s talk audibles and subs. These aren’t perfect, but they
are close enough that if you keep things consistent we will keep the drive alive. Like I said
if you thrive on more exactness you are going to have to use some kind of macrocounter.
Not a big deal, just don’t become a slave to it.
6 or 7 oz of 85/15 or fattier meat = 6 to 7 oz of lean meat + 1 TBS of oil.
1 oz of Bacon = 1 TBS of Fat (it is a meat, but it is not a viable source of protein).
3 oz or about half an Avocado = 1 TBS of Oil.
4 eggs = 3 oz of Lean Protein + 1 TBS of Oil - plug and play accordingly. Therefore you could
sub 8 eggs for 6 oz of protein and 2 TBS of Oil. For a 7 oz protein meal, it will be 9 whole
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eggs, and it will again cost you 2 TBS of Oil. If that doesn’t make sense go back to algebra
and high school math. I can’t help you.
2 TBS of Nut Butters = 1 TBS of Oil (we will negate the carbs due to the fiber, but if you
want to be a super tracker on this take away one ounce of carbohydrate from your day.
Silly. I know) Also, don’t let your life turn into a marathon of trail mix. The evidence on nuts
is pretty solid on the health side, BUT I have seen more than a few athletes lean on
handfuls of nuts instead of sitting down and eating real meals. Not helpful.
I have nothing against fruit, but needs to be accounted for. Thus, if you want to add a
serving of fruit to any day just sub 1 serving for 5 oz of Sweet Potato, 4 oz White Potato or
Brown Rice, 3 oz of White Rice, 3 oz of Plantains, or 2 oz of Yuca
What I just gave you was the Kool-Aid. Follow the recipe and drink it up.
Ó IHLKKI HLK
LHLIKI K
IKIILKKH K HHLĀ1
LK -IIÿ HL HK L I þ-
Ü KHKIIÝ K HK LH K HLH K IHKĀÓK IÝ I II K H L ILK LKþH K HLK
KH KIK
H K HK
HHLL L HK ĀÓK H aIÝ L Ù ILaHIĀdIHL
ĀÚILIKKH LÝ KHK IL IK HLKĀÓHLIKK L KI IHLÓILĊKH LK
K K I LILĀ
ÓHI Ý I HÜIKK
LKIK
IHL Ý L K
IL K
LÝ IL LKĀaIL H HK K I K
ĀÓK
L HK þÓH HÜIKKK L K ILK LKIK
K
KKIIKI HL
K
Iÿ
H IKĀÛþ K þ K HLI
ÝH HLK HKH L Hþ LIKH H KIH K ILK LKHHKHÜ þHLI K HLK HK5 LK ILL K þ LK KH L L þHL HÜ Ā
With the three big bullets out of the way, let’s knock out the rest of our list.
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3. Not Sleeping Enough.
The fact that we lie horizontal and go dead to the world for a third of our existence on this
planet should give you a good idea about how important sleep is. When we sleep, a host of
genes are turned on that are responsible for recovery. Yeah, this is deeper than just
optimizing Testosterone and Growth Hormone. Also, sleep helps with memory
consolidation and our ability to problem solve and come up with solutions to complex
problems, it also enhances our ability to be creative.
So at this point in the game, I hope I don’t have to convince you that sleep is important or
list all the horrible shit that sleep deprivation can do to your life in and out of the gym. I
think sleep is probably the most naturally anabolic thing we can do as humans. Your goal
is nine hours in bed. Period.
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And when we talk about sleep, we have to talk about light and circadian rhythms.
The best representation of circadian rhythms I have is KoiKo, our ten pound guard dog.
The sun goes down and KoiKo is done, comatose, unless he sees a lightning bug, then all
hell breaks loose. He calms down and dead again. When the sun comes up KoiKo and
Bear stretch and then immediately start wrestling, everywhere. They run around in the
sun. Eat breakfast. Play some more. Look out into the world from the deck. Play some
more and maybe take a nap. Then in the afternoon there could be some type of excursion,
maybe a walk to the river or up the road. We come back for dinner and then the sun sets…
and again done.
When is the last time your day looked like that?
Living near the equator makes you acutely aware of the power of light. I can’t keep my
eyes open past 9pm. The sun sets around 6pm and sometimes I hit a wall at seven thirty.
And I can’t remember the last time I slept past 6am. It’s that powerful. You are a light
based primate – respect it.
Here are three strategies you can do to help optimize circadian rhythms and sleep, no
matter where you live.
1.
Se the sun in the morning.
Get outside for at least 15 minutes. Outside light even on a cloudy day is ten times
brighter than indoor light, sunny days are one hundred times brighter. This full spectrum
light hits your suprachiasmatic nucleus in your hypothalamus, which is the air traffic
control tower for your entire brain, this signal relays down through the brainstem (getting
the meat suit started) and also feeds back up into the cortex, producing neurotransmitters
that result in wakefulness and alertness.
On the flip side of this equation is avoiding blue light at night, to do this I recommend you
buy some lamps and some bulbs that emit a very low amount of blue light and use those
when the sun goes down. We have one of these in every room (you won’t need more). The
light feels like it’s supposed to at this time of day and I was amazed
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at how much more relaxed I feel in the evening with this small change. Use them instead
of overhead lighting that replicates the sun. Next.
2.
Turn off your electronics (mini suns) as early as you can, preferably three hours
before bed.
If you want to watch a movie, cool, enjoy it. I love watching shows with my wife. I have
f.lux on the screen and we both wear blublocking glasses (it took her some time to jump
on board and we had to buy her more stylish ones). If you don’t want to jump on the
glasses train, f.lux will change what the movie looks like, but block the blue light. I would
however avoid social media or reading anything that is going to create an emotional
response later in the evening. I have had clients who have two TVs on, while their phone is
a constant disaster of push notifications, and then they wonder why it takes them an hour
to read a three page article on their iPad.
As fun as it is to be plugged into the dopamine drip, we absolutely have to build off ramps
into our day. We need time off. Also, I have found most folks stay plugged into work far
too long and don’t do a very good job at seeing an email and not doing anything about it,
instead they ruminate on it and it wakes them up at 3am, and they
think, “Oh my god, Tammie needs to reschedule her appointment for next Thursday.”
Fuck Tammie, it’s time to sleep.
3.
Stop drinking all the caffeine and maybe stop drinking it after 10am.
Kick away the crutch. I am not anti-caffeine in the slightest, in fact I think people who are
so sensitive that they can’t even look at a cup of decaf are soft like Charmin, fragile. I love
coffee and drink it nearly every day. I will also take some PreTrain NRG on training days.
But the max amount of caffeine I get before 10 am is around 200mg.
No caffeine is not going to dehydrate you, but it makes you more alert via blocking
adenosine receptors, also you need a shit ton of it for very minimal performance
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increases. We are talking 6 mg/kg to induce an adrenaline response and maybe 3 to 4
mg/kg to get a performance pop.
In most people regardless of genetics, 50-75% of caffeine will be cleared in 3 to 6 hours. If
you have genetic polymorphisms in CYP1A2 enzyme and/or methylation SNPs, clearance
would likely be on the slower side and these folks may need less caffeine to receive a
benefit, but we can't know for sure as SNPs don't necessarily predicate phenotypic
expression.
As many of us have experienced, caffeine enhances cognitive abilities, increases the
endorphin response to exercise and overall feelings of well-being, mobilizes free fatty
acids, and elevates exercise performance across multiple time domains (1-27% - the
higher end of this spectrum being seen in endurance exercise and the benefits in highintensity exercise performance seem to be limited to highly trained subjects).
On the health side, in prospective epidemiology research, coffee consumers generally have
a lower risk of all-cause mortality even when controlling for a host of other deleterious
factors (of note, the majority of these folks drinking non-organic coffee, which is
interesting as coffee is one of the most pesticide riddled crops).
Yet, despite all the positives, in practice I see caffeine get people in a lot of trouble and I
believe this is because of one of its most notable positives and negatives - caffeine
promotes wakefulness and tends to alleviate the symptoms of sleep deprivation. The
vicious cycle here jumps off the page, as the average American sleeps less than 6 hours
per night. Then knowing they have to do ALL the things, they pick up a triple shot
macchiato and simply take out a short-term loan in the name of getting the job done,
whether that be crushing spreadsheets or 10ks. Watch an animal when it is sick. They lie
around, eat, and recover. You would never say I really want to go on a hike with my dog,
but he is crashed from an infection or staying up all night because of fireworks. "Too bad,
so sad, here is a Redline Gizmo. Leash up!"
But, we humans do this on a daily basis...because we can and our environment tells us
this is not only ok, but necessary.
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Yes, I am promoting moderation here. Coffee is one of the last real rituals we have left as
humans and I don’t want to take that away from you. I seem to be able to moderate
caffeine really well and I have found most humans can get this done with hard endings
and new beginnings, so they need less. Here is your max coffee consumption two half-caff
cups of coffee and a serving of PreTrain NRG all before 10am. This means by 7pm you
should definitely have less than 50 mg floating around in your system, and realistically
probably less than 15 mg.
Extras:
*Exercising may induce circadian rhythm shifts as drastic as bright light, thus training
super late at night is likely not the best idea. Also, research has found that athletes who
train really early have problems with sleep because they are anxious about the training
session. I know I have felt this to be true and I bet you have too.
Thus, I would ideally train in the mid-morning (best from a hormonal standpoint) or midafternoon (best from an alertness and coordination standpoint). Also, exercise in the
afternoon has been found to be related to increased deep sleep. If you absolutely can’t
make those times happen because of life, you should really be done training 2 to 3 hours
before you plan to go to sleep and you can probably expect some phase shifts from this
approach, but you should be fine from a total and quality sleep standpoint.
You can also increase wakefulness in the morning by hitting a few rounds (5ish) of 10
seconds ON and 40 seconds OFF right upon waking. This could be anything, squat jumps,
lighter air-dyne work, skipping outside, whatever.
It is also probably not the best idea to eat within one hour of sleep. But, along these sH
lines eating a higher carbohydrate meal in the evening can push tryptophan across the
blood brain barrier resulting in more serotonin, and thus more melatonin. However, be
careful with this as if you go too high you can come down around 2am to 4am and wake up
from a subsequent cortisol spike, so watch it. If this happens to you all the time anyways
you could try something like UCAN an hour or so before bed.
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4. Not Drinking Enough.
Up to 60% of you is water and changes in exercise physiology and capacity are seen in as
little as a .5% loss in total body water. This is important because thirst doesn’t kick in until
you reach 1 to 2% dehydration, thus we will manage this through two very simple tracking
methods.
1.
Your piss. It needs to look like 1, 2, or 3 the majority of the time
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2.
You are going to buy a 40 oz canteen and make sure to drink three of them on OFF
days.
Don’t buy the 64 oz, they are annoying and don’t fit anywhere. Then in the first week of
MASS 2 you are going to measure yourself naked before every training session and
measure yourself naked after. For every pound you lose you need an extra 20 oz. So if you
lose two lbs you need one more canteen. This might even be a non-issue if you use water
for your shake after training, as well as drink some water while you train. The biggest
thing is we have to stay ahead of the game, if you are thirsty, you already lost. Also, you
can’t drink 120 oz in an hour and be done for the day, as the most water you can absorb in
an hour is about 34 oz.
Enough said.
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5. Not Relaxing Enough AKA Being a Stressed Out Ping Pong Ball of a
Human.
Busyness is a disease. And the attachment to being busy is one of the worst addictions I
see in today's population. The hustle becomes an identity, a cross to bear. We begin to
detest quiet and solitude, perhaps even fear doing nothing. We live in a haze of task
switching, which is probably the most stressful existence for a human being. And this
leaves us in a place where we get nothing of real value accomplished because to do
anything of worth takes depth and it takes focused attention for long periods of time.
When there are lots of urgent important tasks to be done...Get them done.
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But, when there are not, don't turn your life into a tornado of frantic unimportant urgency
just because you want to tell people you're busy, or worse because some little voice in your
head tells you that without this incessant busyness you are not enough.
I used to love it when people would tell me, "Oh, you must be so busy." Now, I make sure to
break that stereotype right away and respond, "Maybe sometimes, but not really." People
usually give me a weird condescending look. I give less than zero fucks and walk away.
Every week I manage the chaos of the unimportant stuff and put the things I know I need
to do first...first. Productivity and efficiency trumps busyness every time.
But how can you break the cycle? Let’s go with three things.
1. Again, begin and stick to some type of mindfulness practice. I have mentioned this
twice now, so let’s really dig in.
The weight room was the first place I believe I encountered a glimpse of mindfulness, in
the struggle, in the effort, my mind got quieter. I got addicted to that feeling of paying
acute attention to what my body was doing. Then over time it evolved into unconscious
competence and I could go in the gym, hit play, and everything else would just fall away.
But, training is not meditation. Neither is walking, taking out the trash, driving, or doing
the dishes. These things can be done mindfully, but they are not meditation.
Meditation is sitting, standing, or lying while watching your thoughts. Meditation involves
a concerted and constant effort to come back to the present moment again and again. As
Pat would say, mindfulness is being acutely aware of the present moment. And
meditation has been found to be an effective practice to manage stress and anxiety even
in those under large amounts of stress. Meditation has demonstrated that it has the
ability to improve mood, mental health, and quality of life. It has also been shown to lower
pain, heart rate, blood pressure, sympathetic nerve activity, circulating cortisol, and the
cortisol response to metabolic stress.
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Meditation decreases the acute physiological response to stress, produces a relaxation
response even in those who have never meditated before, and meditation may even
reduce cellular aging and telomere shortening, as well as support the immune system and
lower inflammatory cytokines. Additionally, starting a meditation practice has been shown
to be practical, feasible, and appealing, even to those under extreme stress, where
compliance hovered around 80%!
I began sitting formal Zazen when I was 19. I was walking with my father one evening in a
Zen garden (he had been practicing for many years at this time). We came upon his
teacher, Tony Somlai, who was smoking a cigarette on his front step. I can still remember
the vividness of the smoke as it intermingled with his grey beard.
We talked about nothing and baseball for what seemed like hours. I immediately
connected with this man. Maybe it was the unfaltering manner in which he laughed or the
way he seemed to look inside of you. I was young, precocious, and intrigued.
I never thought about what I was doing. I joined my father’s Zen center and just started
sitting and watching. My mind was wild. Sometimes I was bored. Sometimes I was
excited. Most of the time, I was just bubbling over with thoughts about women, oh and the
past, and the future, all while sitting quietly on the sun beaten black cushions.
Many books were offered to me in this time, and a large portion of them changed the
direction of my life. As you know, I was a relatively shitty human when I was young. I also
objectified and treated women very poorly, and this is something that I feel profoundly
guilty about even to this day. I imagined what my mother would think of me, and these
actions still haunt me.
Sitting didn’t change that all at once. But, it gave me a feeling of being alive, really here in
this moment. Call it what you want, flow, presence, or nothing special, but sitting on that
cushion was the most frightening thing I had ever done. Over time, I became less
reactionary, and the tiniest of gaps began to form between my thoughts and my actions.
Eventually, as I paid attention to the cause and effect of my life, that old self had to
change, like water wearing away rock, sometimes fast, mostly slow.
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It hasn’t been all warm and cozy controlled moments since I started a meditation practice.
I have failed again and again. I stopped sitting for an extended period when we first moved
to Austin. Life was too exciting, too busy to sit. I tried again and again to start, but I was
alone, my resolve poor, and my environment fierce. This choice almost cost me my
marriage. When I was drunk, the highs would be very high, and lows…well…low. I would
fight with my wife and others. On her birthday, I got in a fight at a bar. My male friends
were jacked up about the event. I jumped off a table and hit some guy who was talking
shit to one of my friends about ten times in the face before he or I even knew what
happened. I hope it is the last fight I ever partake in. My wife was not impressed, this was
not the man she married, she simply woke up and said, “I don’t like it you when you drink.”
In that moment, I again woke up to who I had become. Better in some respects, but still
very much the same. Reactionary and afraid. Afraid to really look at this life deeply,
content to float on the surface pushed around by any pleasant breeze or storm that came
my way. Drifting. Yet, now it was even more painful because I had made the choice to fall
back asleep. To take the blue pill and actively choose ignorance.
Every time we sit, we make a decision to wake up. I believe that this is the most
courageous thing a human can do. Mindfulness feeds the fire of all our other positive
habits and that is one of the reasons we see such a profound and global effect in the
research. For me, it is not a choice anymore; it is a necessity.
Yet, in the conundrum that is duality, sitting is not the goal. Sitting is practice for life.
“In my small class in meditation for non-Vietnamese, there are many young people. I’ve
told them that if each one can meditate an hour each day that’s good, but it’s nowhere
near enough. You’ve got to practice meditation when you walk, stand, lie down, sit, and
work, while washing your hands, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, drinking tea,
talking to friends, or whatever you are doing.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh
What doesn’t meditation do?
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Choosing to sit does not make you better than anyone else. It connects you with yourself.
And it is only when you know yourself that you can truly know and even attempt to help
others. With time, you begin to see that we are all connected and that you are nothing
special, and that this is special.
Also, meditation is not a substitute for therapy. Meditation can be a powerful adjunct to
therapy after traumatic events, but it is not therapy. Most Zen teachers are not therapists,
and this is not their job. I have seen many people put spiritual leaders on a pedestal and
try to utilize their services outside of the bounds of what is appropriate. These choices are
generally made out of fear of seeking out or paying for professional help.
How do you start a meditation practice?
First, you need to identify a time and a place where you will sit. Then you need to hold
yourself accountable to this time each day. My advice is to start with 10 to 15 minutes
(this is the time frame that leads to the largest bump in adherence) and focus on not
breaking the streak. Go thirty days and then turn it into 400, 1000, a lifetime. And if you
miss a session, just get back on the horse.
For me, it works best if I sit immediately upon waking. If I do not start the day with
meditation, it can get put off and put off. I do not do this anymore. I start the day with
what is most important. I also enjoy sitting the evening when I finish work, this can be a
great signal to your mind and body that it is the end of the workday.
You may also do well with guided meditations for the first 30 days. Headspace and
Buddify are my favorites, but find a voice that resonates with you and that you can adhere
to for the entire month. Eventually, in my opinion, you will want to transition to the
majority of your practice being unguided. The next big transition is sitting with other
humans and joining or creating a community. This transition is likely the most daunting,
but also the most rewarding. Remember, you do not practice for yourself. You practice to
know yourself so that you may truly help others.
Is a meditation practice feasible?
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Absolutely, and keeping this habit becomes easier and easier as your practice gains
momentum. With time, meditation will become your refuge, your sanctuary, and your
battlefield.
Like I said, I believe you are a different type of meathead. A warrior in the garden.
2. HeartMath
Meditation has to be in play, but some people do not get a parasympathetic drop from
meditation. However, an additional recovery tool and gadget for producing quick flips in
Autonomics is HeartMath. It is a clip that hooks to your ear and then an app on your
iPhone or iPad that reads your HRV and with time you begin to get your breathing and
your heart in sync, thus flipping you into a more parasympathetic state. It’s powerful and I
have seen grown men fall asleep in three minutes in the middle of the day. My absolute
favorite time to use this technology is around lunch. Just three to five minutes will help, I
promise.
One of my other favorite uses for this technology is promoting sleep initiation. Let’s face it,
I get excited about things that are happening in my life. If you don’t, this is a bigger
problem. Yet, with that anticipation, sometimes I will wake up at 3 or 4 am ready to go. If
you wake up in the middle of the night, don't be mad at yourself. This helps nobody.
Don't be pissed off your mind is revved up about work or what you have to do the coming
day. Don't even try counting your breaths. The middle of the night voice is too strong for
that entry level hippie shit. You need the big guns because, let’s face it, you have to wake
up in 107 minutes and you don't have time to beat your pillow senseless.
HeartMath has never failed to put me back to sleep like a baby within in 10 minutes. It'll
put you to bed. Every. Single. Time. And then when things slow down you won’t need it,
but it’s always there if you have something huge coming on the horizon that your mind
can’t put down.
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3. The importance of number Three cannot be overstated - Take long periods away from
the dopamine drip.
I recommend one week a month away from social media. If you can, during this time block
all your email into as short a time block as possible. (Also, you should have all push
notifications already turned off your phone, this was covered in the first MASS nutrition
manual and it hasn’t changed, that shit is for amateurs. Your time is too important to be
pestered with the latest GNC deal on gummi vitamins.)
I pulled the trigger on my first hardcore unplug last February and it was one of the most
powerful things I have ever done and no real part of me wanted to do it. The constant
information storm does weird things to the human mind and you tend to forget about the
importance and the tranquility of the world around you. Use this time to be a tourist in
your own life. Try it. That world will be there when you return to it, but I guarantee you,
that it will feel different.
"Lives go down the tubes one repetition at a time, one deflection at a time, one hundred
and forty characters at a time."
- Steven Pressfield
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6. Not Sitting At The Grown-Up Table AKA Improper Meal Hygiene
Carnivores like lions have huge stomachs with extremely high acidity to break up large
chunks of meat. Snakes can dislodge their jaw via a double jointed hinge bone called the
quadrate bone, and eat an animal alive. Depending on the size of the snake, they may only
need to eat once every few weeks. You are not a snake. You are not a lion. You are a
primate.
Apes are primarily herbivores, eating huge varieties of plants. They have giant protruding
guts to digest leaves and other high fiber foods. They have masticating teeth to mash and
chomp things down to increase the surface area. For example, an adult gorilla eats over 40
pounds of food a day and spends more than half its day chewing. Yes, our closest relative,
chimpanzees did eat very limited meat (primarily other monkeys), but we were the first
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species to harness tools and fire and every research study to date has found that humans
absolutely cannot live on a diet compromised of only raw foods. Anthropologists believe
that tools and fire were the two inciting events that spurred the ability of our brains to get
bigger (socializing and gossip is believed to be the why behind the brain growing). In order
for our brains to get bigger, something had to give. Our hands and our brains are very
different than apes, but our jaws and guts are not, they are just smaller because we can
extract more energy from less food because of our ability to process it.
None of us likely want to go back in time to eating termites and baby monkeys, but where
does this leave us as an omnivorous primate that lives on the ground and has the ability
to use knives and fire on a regular basis. It means we have gone from 8 to 12 hours of
chewing and practically all day looking for food to spending about 30 min chewing a day
and maybe an hour at the grocery store or five minutes on Instacart once a week. We can’t
be too mad about this as a species, as it has freed us up to do all kinds of amazing things
like conquer the dark, conquer the air, and perhaps conquer space. It has allowed us to
create beautiful works of art, stop infectious disease, and become a relatively more
peaceful species (as far as human deaths are concerned).
Yet, it has also allowed us to become the most vicious serial killer the world has ever seen.
We are the first animal to change the world and in this feat, we killed over 50% of the large
mammals on earth before we even invented the wheel and we are not slowing down, our
capitalistic structures will not allow this and it is estimated that there will be nearly 10
billion humans on planet earth by 2050 and we have absolutely zero idea how we are
going to feed them all.
Our increased digestive capacity does not mean we can throw evolution to the birds and
completely eliminate chewing. Well I suppose if you didn’t want to chew anymore and just
wanted to be the ultimate hustle machine you could get a PEG tube surgically inserted
into your stomach or duodenum and never have to worry about eating again. Yet, for most
of us the point of digestion is to make big things small AKA increase surface area so that
we can digest and absorb more nutrients. Cooking allows us to do this as does chewing
which reduces the particle size of food and allows saliva to moisten it so that it can be
swallowed. When some foods, especially foods that our ancestors ate like, vegetables,
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fruits, and nuts are eaten whole, they come out the other end, well, pretty much whole.
Humans seem to be able to do a little better with cooked meat and eggs swallowed
entirely, but we probably shouldn’t push our luck and replicate experiments done on
people who had their dentures taken away.
So sit with your food, not your iPhone and chew. A lot of weird numbers get thrown
around in this realm like 41 chews per bite, but I have absolutely zero idea where those
urban legend numbers are coming from, but we would be wise to chew everything down
to the consistency of oatmeal, given that our stomach does not have teeth and we are not
a lion or a boa constrictor.
The other aspect of optimizing digestions has to do with autonomics. This means that
eating What-A-Burger while driving at 75 miles per hours in a steel cage is a very bad idea
from an evolutionary and digestive standpoint because when we go sympathetic, we do
not care about things like digestion or reproduction. We shift everything to survival. Thus,
if you live in a permanent sympathetic state you are going to have a lot of problems with
digestion. You are going to have loose stool and perhaps a spastic colon. Also, cortisol
reduces the lining of the GI tract, hinders gastric secretions, and lowers secretory IgA, our
first line of defense against pathogens. Going sympathetic moves blood away from the
alimentary canal and to the working muscles and the brain, quite useful during the
developmental day of MASS, but not useful when you need to get nutrients into the
system. There have even been cases of ultra-endurance runners needing to have parts of
their bowels taken out because they died from lack of blood flow.
So what are the three things we can do to promote better meal hygiene?
1.
Chew everything to the consistency of oatmeal, perhaps even chew a bit when you
are drinking your shake.
2.
Practice some type of breathing activity before or after eating whenever possible to
push yourself into a more parasympathetic state. I recommend one wheel or three to five
minutes of HeartMath around as many meals as possible.
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3.
Cook your food and eat the majority of your meals at a table, sitting down, while
paying attention and being thankful that humans have been allowed another day on this
planet to eat food we didn’t kill or forage, but found in a refrigerator.
If you have digestive symptoms and these do not go away by devoutly practicing the big
three above you likely want to seek out a trained professional and get more testing on this
system. It’s kind of important that you can assimilate nutrients if you want to grow.
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7. Not Getting Outside.
A lot of lives are house to car to office to car to gym to house to bed. Some research shows
that on average Americans spend around 90% of their time indoors, a snowballing
conundrum of indoor air which is dirtier than outdoor air even in the largest of cities, not
seeing or feeling the sun, and being attached to a screen instead of the world around you.
Humans seem to have an innate proclivity to nature and other living organisms. Put a
child on a beach or in a park and watch what happens. They go searching for animals, they
play games with the waves, and they are in general awe of the world - “Look at this! Look
at that!”’
Regardless if you care about children or any of this woo woo shit, being in nature, even
looking at nature has been found to reduce feelings of anxiety, depression, and anger,
reduce blood pressure, decrease pain, improve recovery from surgery, dampen
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inflammatory cytokines, and enhance immune function. Increasing availability and access
to outdoor spaces has also been shown improve the social development of children and
social bonds within communities.
I felt my life becoming an incessant wheel of indoor activity when I was in my midtwenties. I would wake up at 4:30, eat some gluten-free almond butter sandwiches while
driving my stick shift car to train a couple clients in their private residences. Then I would
roll over to the lab before anyone in their right mind would show up, and I would work until
I lifted in the afternoon. Then I would work some more after training and coach for three to
four hours in the evening. Most nights I would get home around 9:30 or 10pm depending
on how late people hovered at the gym. I had no energy for myself or my family. Home
was a place I slept. I did this for well over a year. I did this for the love of the game. I was
young and in my mind I had to earn my stripes. Maybe I was right, but it was not a real life
-it was an indoor, tunnel-visioned existence where I never stuck my head out to see the
big picture. I was making a decent living, but realized I was making gobs more money for
other humans who were in parks with their kids or driving boats down the Colorado River.
A year might not sound like a long time and it’s not, I have met fitness professionals who
have been doing this for decades, unwilling to unplug, unwilling to set business hours and
barriers, stuck in places they begin to love to hate.
Don’t let that become your existence. Don’t let the gym or your home become a place of
angst. We do this by not being chained to it and we are the only ones who can break those
chains. It’s difficult, sometimes these chains have been rusted on for generations. But, it
starts by looking deeply at what does it really mean to be wealthy. Given this is a chapter
on getting outside we will quote Thoreau.
“I make myself rich by making my wants few.” ― Henry David Thoreau
Many people think Steph and I are rich, maybe even trust fund babies. The truth we are
lower-middle class. Maybe middle-middle class. But, we are rich. We both work in some
fashion every day of the week. But, we are free.
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This again comes back KIthe first item we dug into –purpose. And if you don’t know your
purpose, walk through the woods. Something will call to you to wake up and if you miss it,
something will call to you again. Nature just is, it is unrelentingly present, and in that
presence comes purpose.
“Financially wealthy people are those who have enough money coming in without having
to work to finance their purpose in life. Now, please realize that this definition presents a
challenge to anyone who accepts it. To be financially wealthy you must have a purpose for
your life. In other words, without purpose, you’ll never know when you have enough
money, and you can never be financially wealthy.” -Gary Keller
Thoreau and Keller are really saying the same thing. Keller is probably even more Thoreau
than Thoreau, in that he would advocate we make our wants fewest by having a singular
purpose. And if that singular purpose is money (or influence or fame), you are living in a
narcissistic dream. Money is just a tool, a lever, a fictitious idea that only has power
because we give it power. What a shitty deity to worship. It then comes down to the
existential question - why do anything? And that’s for you to figure out.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.”
- Thoreau
I had this dream when I was 20 to spend an entire year in a cabin in the woods in northern
Wisconsin. I lived it in my head. Every season. I felt the fall wind on my face and the snow
packing down under my shoes. I felt the rain in spring and the warmth of the sun as the
days grew longer. But, I met Steph and she hates the cold, so we didn’t make it past
November. My left brain thought it knew what this quote meant, but it didn’t and I still
don’t, but living secluded in the rain forest, I can glimpse it. I can feel the meaning drawing
closer, rolling around on my tongue. I can feel the quiet rhythm of the world and the
indifference it has to my to-do lists and it is beautiful beyond measure.
Why do anything?
For me, I have come to a deep need to leave this world a better place than I found it. A
need to help and a need to build something that shows other humans what it is like to live
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and take as little as possible, while giving as much as possible. I am not asking this of you,
I know that is egotistical and asinine, the only thing I can do is live that message.
Because this is how humans are meant to exist. Surrounded by the natural world,
engulfed and in awe of it and if we are not careful our children’s children may never see a
tree. They may never watch the rain. They may never feel the sand crinkling under their
feet. Yet, if we bring this awe and respect of nature back into our everyday lives, we have a
chance to restore the health of our world and it becomes more than just Hdocumentary
we watch once a year and feel bad about for an hour.
We are arboreal mammals. Face it. Embrace it and get OUTside.
So how do you do it? How do you get outside? What a silly question. You walk out the door,
but here are three things that may help you push it open and break the cycle.
1.
Buy a lawn chair and put it on your porch or in backyard and sit in it during your
meditation practice. Easy. Stare at a tree. Go.
2.
Schedule time each week, it doesn’t matter how long to get outside. To hike, to
kayak, to paddle board, to climb, to go to the beach, whatever you love to do and if you
don’t know what that is, try stuff and ruminate on it while you are staring at that tree in
your backyard chair.
3.
Schedule a trip each month to go to a park or some natural expanse. It could be for
an hour, a day, a weekend, or a month. Doesn’t matter, just schedule it, hold yourself
accountable to it, and start pushing that snowball down the hill in the other direction.
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8. Not Having Any Fun.
We live in a world where it is frowned upon for grown-ups to have fun. It is synonymous
with laziness and that is bullshit. When did having fun and enjoying the fruits of your
labor become something to feel bad about? You work 40-50 hours a week, you shouldn’t
feel one ounce of remorse for taking off early on a Friday if all your work is done to get
after what you love. In fact, I want you to plan it. Whatever it is fishing, hunting, golfing,
hiking, camping, cooking, movie watching, bird watching, biking, surfing, coffee shopping, or
building a kite. I don't give a flying fuck what it is you love to do. That's not for me to judge.
You love break dancing? You better be break dancing every week. You love fantasy novels?
You better have scheduled some time to get knee deep in Harry Potter.
And if you don't know what you love to do, I feel very sorry for you and so does your 3rd
grade self. You probably used to be able to play for hours on end. Homework was a drag,
but now you may voluntarily start doing that shit on the regular. Get the job done and
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plan/block time for what you enjoy. Don't think it’s not productive either. This time will
give you more energy and I bet you will be more productive and less stressed by giving
yourself the permission to have this time.
Some of you may be in the boat where what you love to do is your job. That's dangerous
because you can always justify working. I know that mind. I know that life. I will read
about nutrition and exercise science until my eyes bleed. But, I schedule things every week
that I love to do and I schedule them with other people and the dogs. And I hold myself
accountable to them and myself.
I also recommend scheduling your next vacation right now. Maybe right after Phase 2. I
know what I am doing! Finding a way to go play doctor golf with my good friend and
physio, Sam Sneed. We will bet on everything. Crush five pounds of vegetables that I bring
in a cooler. We will also have kombuchas. It will be glorious. Sam will probably beat me
because he is a freak athlete, but also a horrible putter. Thus, I always have a chance. Even
writing this makes me want to call up all my golfing friends and get a weekend scheduled.
This is honestly what I miss most about being in the Jungle and not being in Austin. In
Austin, I would golf with someone at least once a week on Wednesday or Friday and then
sometimes on the weekends too. I would leave my phone and any and all work in the
truck, talk an immense about of trash, and just play. I won't go golfing by myself. It's boring
and I don't enjoy it. I might go to the range for an hour, but it feels like work. Yet, I could
spend weeks playing golf with Patrick Massey and Carson Calhoun.
We all have something we love to do. Don't judge it, schedule time for it and spend money
on it.
That’s what it’s for!
Go.
Now.
When is your next vacation going to be?
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Will you stay home or where will you go?
Who are you going with?
What are you going to do so you don't just work?
Ok, good.
Next, I want you to block off a time every week that is just yours. It could be a whole
afternoon, like I had in Austin, or it could be an hour you spend reading fiction by the lake
or playing pinochle with your mom. Doesn't matter, schedule it, and stick it.
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9. Not Socializing or Having a Community.
You are a socially driven primate meant to live in a band of likely under 150 other humans.
If you come to Costa Rica, sit and watch the monkeys they jump around in trees and
spend pretty much all their time foraging, chewing, or grooming each other.
This also why we inherently fear being different and living in dissonance with the other
humans around us because from an evolutionary perspective if you got kicked out of the
tribe – you were dead.
In most consults I have a sneaky way of asking people about their social life. It is in a story
I tell about the immune system and you will probably hear it in most of the podcasts I
have done. In it, I ask them point blank, “You have two groups of friends at a party, who
are they?”
Some people can’t answer this question.
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They don’t have one group of friends, let alone two.
They end up going with something like work friends and family, but I know right then that
they are a very isolated human.
If you are that human, I need you to start doing things you love and going to places where
other humans do those things. It’s the best way in our current culture to find people with
common interests. And guess what, if you are reading this book, one of those interests is
probably the weight room.
Humans love to suffer together, just look at the power of the CrossFit community. Many
times these people know that what they are doing isn’t working. They know that their
coach is guessing at a wipe board most of the time. They know they are getting hurt, but
they don’t care because they identify with being a CrossFitter and they are starving for
any kind of community that is more than saying hi to someone while you fill up your
coffee mug in the cubicle farm.
MASS 1 is possibly even more lethal than CrossFit because it is more consistent and
tactical. However, MASS 2 is by no means a cake walk, but I believe most humans could
jump on the train at some level and really benefit.
People like being part of something bigger than themselves. With MASS 1, I was honestly
a little hesitant when some of my clients would ask me about it. I knew their lives and I
knew their training history – in my mind it was too risky. But, I have zero hesitation
advocating MASS 2 to pretty much anyone and you shouldn’t either. Pat didn’t put this out
into the world to make more money, he put it out into the world, to get it out of his head
and into your hands. He put it out there to make a difference, to expand on MASS 1 and in
this he has proven to everyone that MASS 1 was just an infinitesimal fraction of his
expertise.
“A rising tide, lifts all boats.”
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Pat and I can only train and consult with so many humans, we write to expand the
amount of people we can help. We write and produce this content so that it will ripple out
and make all of us better.
Thus, don’t feel bad about sharing MASS 2 with others, just be honest. That is all Pat and I
are after anyways – the truth.
Some of you train alone or live in isolated micro-environments. I am the same way. I train
alone most of the time and have for more than three years. Yet, I have training partners all
over the globe. The internet is not an alternative to authentic in-person interactions, but
it’s not worthless either. I ran through the preliminary blueprint of MASS 2 with Teo and it
was an absolute blast, the witty banter made everything about the experience more
enjoyable. I also knew that James and Pat were going through the program too and just
thinking about this kept me on the straight and narrow. And then guess what? I plan
vacations revolved around lifting and golfing.
Also, two days a week I train a few of the Costa Rican workers that we have on staff. One
of those days I lift with them. It pushes all of us and we go to battle together, instead of
me asking them when the garbage disposal will be installed. It’s a good time and it always
amazes me how strong humans can get so quickly in the beginning. It also reminds that
we are not meant to be blobs of adipose tissue parked on a couch and that if you are
strength coach, overload is your life force and your job is not chasing after the newest
corrective exercise.
Your brain and your muscles both absolutely need stimulation, also stimulating one feeds
into the other feed. We have to move and most humans would do insanely well on a
program like MASS 2. It may need to be modified a bit to only have 2 or 3 sessions a week,
but it’s just a well thought out program that would benefit most people.
Now your community doesn’t have to be built around MASS and you can obviously be part
of many communities. But most of us will gravitate towards other people who live the Iron
life.
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Yet, your community could center around food, your kid’s soccer team, church, hunting,
fishing, cribbage, traveling, Yoga, knitting, or you could be really tight with your work
colleagues. There are no rules and deep inside, you know if it is genuine or not. You also
know if spending time with this community lifts you up or drags you down. Pay attention
to that and put forth the majority of your effort on the communities that leave you and
others feeling energized and empowered.
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CLOSING:
Whew. That was a lot. Some of you may have already picked out a few items that you are
going add into your routine. Good. I don’t have the expectation that any of us are going to
knock out 100% of these items every single day, no matter how many checklists I create or
reminders you put in your phone. Honestly, I don’t even think that would be helpful or
healthy anyways. Thus, I what I want each of you to do right now is rank the K L in the
order of weakest to strongest.
I’ll go first.
1.
Not Having Any Fun.
2.
Not Socializing, Having a Community, or Any Human Touch.
3.
Not Sitting At The Grown-Up Table AKA Improper Meal Hygiene.
4.
Not Relaxing Enough AKA Being a Stressed Out Ping Pong Ball of a Human.
5.
Not Drinking Enough.
6.
Not Sleeping Enough.
7.
Not Getting Outside.
8.
Not Eating Enough.
9.
Not Eating Like An Adult.
10.
Not Having a Purpose.
I am good, real good at making time for mindfulness, sleeping, drinking water, eating
enough, crushing vegetables, and getting outdoors. I have put so much effort into building
positive habits in these realms that I don’t even have to think about it anymore, it’s all on
autopilot, which is what we want. Most of you probably have numbers low on your list like
this. Nice work.
But, as of the last 6 months, I suck at holding myself accountable to have fun. Really bad
and I need to work on this and figure out what kind of accountability structure is going to
help with that. I know what I love and I know what I need to do, I just need to do it. What I
came up with is that I will email my wife a weekly recap email every Friday. I will not let
226
her down and I know it. I also set up an ongoing commitment on www.stickk.com that
really hones in on the areas that I need to bring focus to.
Stickk is a research based goal setting site developed by an economic professor at Yale.
You set up commitments and if you fail you have to donate money to an anti-charity. My
anti charity is The National Center for Public Policy Research. You can google them, it's
depressing.
I will share my goals for the first month with you.
I will...
Cook 2 fancy sit-down dinners per week for Steph and I.
Walk dogs to river or on the beach Five times a Month.
Finish 1 personal development book a month.
Finish 1 long form article a month.
Miss only 10% of the values on the MASS tracking sheets and 10% of macros (3
days).
As I edit these goals each month, my guess is they will reach more and more.
I also doubled up because I like to gamble and created another One Shot commitment that
has a ballsier dollar amount for the end of the 16 weeks of MASS 2.
Your goals are completely up to you. Feel free to share them if you wish, sometimes this
helps, sometimes it just creates noise.
A heads up that you cannot get out of a commitment once you launch it on stick, so take
some time to ponder what you want this to drive. TI do this we will ask the question…
What is your order for the big TEN?
1.
Not Eating Enough.
2.
Not Eating Like An Adult
3.
Not Sleeping Enough.
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øĀ
Not Drinking Enough.
"Ā
Not Relaxing Enough AKA Being a Stressed Out Ping Pong Ball of a Human.
áĀ
NotSitting At The Grown-Up Table AKA Improper Meal Hygiene
7.
Not Getting Outside.
8.
Not Having Any Fun.
9.
Not Socializing, Having a Community, or Any Human Touch.
10.
Not Having a Fucking Purpose.
Maybe you are great at having fun, but food volume is a problem for you and you blow it
out on tacos and tequila on the weekends and this derails your Monday training session.
Maybe sleep is your number 1 and you can’t seem to gain muscle no matter what else you
do. Maybe you are really good at starting lifting programs, but suck at finishing them.
Figure it out and nail down what is going to help you improve these aspects of your life
that need the most attention and then go to Stickk and make it official.
“A goal without real consequences is wishful thinking.”
-Tim Ferris
There is this thought process in the “habit” world that it is best to add one thing at a time
and then a year later you have all these super-tactular new habits that stuck. Blah, blah,
blah. If you are reading this you probably aren’t that kind of person. These people are
boring and they wear sweaters. You are the human that jumps head first into the deep
end after your buddy nods to you that it’s deep enough. Thus, what I want you to do is
throw as much of this as you can or need to against a wall and then assess what sticks.
Then I want you to throw it at the wall again at the start of the next phase and the next
phase and the next.
By the end of the 16 weeks, I know we are all going to get better and be better.
“Habit strategies don’t work for everyone. If we know ourselves, we’re able to manage
ourselves better, and if we’re trying to work with others, it helps to understand them.”
Gretchen Rubin - Better Than Before
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It is an honor that you purchased this book and find my words of value. I do not take it
lightly. Thank you and Thank You Again. I also hope these last 10 chapters have helped
you get to know yourself a little better and allowed you to assess what you do well and
what area of your life may need some attention. Remember MASS 2 is way bigger than just
picking up barbells and putting them down. I want the next 16 weeks of MASS 2 to inflect dangerously
positive change into your life.
That’s all well and good, but Money Talks, Bullshit Walks.
What are you going to do?
“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch
your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your
character, for it becomes your destiny.”
- Frank Outlaw
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SUSTAINABILITY?
As a bonus, I have to be a hippie, because the meal plans I am recommending in this book
are likely not so good for the world and I believe that we have a responsibility to leave this
place better than we found it. If you don’t agree with me just stop reading. You are not
ready, but I think all of you are.
“It is estimated by 2048 the entire fish population will collapse….As a species, we use 24
million farm animals per day (or 9 billion per year) for food, this livestock generates 100
times more waste than the entire human population.”
-Ryan Andrews – Eating to Prevent the Apocalypse.
Staying with the theme we will talk about three itemsā
1.
Don’t waste food (America throws away ¼ of its groceries and if wasted food was a
country it would be the third highest greenhouse gas emitter under China and the US).
2.
Buy the highest quality food within your budget. I don’t know what that is so I
won’t belabor the fact. Don’t make a habit of buying CAFO meat, these atrocities are an
insult to all beings and the epitome humanism.
3.
Tweaking your meal plan to limit animal products or pay a carbon tax.
As an academic pursuit. I tried to make a meal plan for a Dude Bro about my size that
used the recommended amount of animal products - AKA less than 10% of your kcals.
Going into this I knew I would need to use nuts to make this happen and probably beans. I
could also use pea protein. That means if I have 3,000 kcals to work with I have 300 kcals
of meat, eggs, or dairy. I chose chicken breast because it would give me the biggest bang
for my protein buck, even though it is not eating nose to tail.
Here goes for a 185 lb male who lifts, where maintenance calories would probably be
around 3000-3200 kcals
Here were my parametersā
At least three pounds of vegetables
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1 gram per pound protein = 185 grams
3g/kg of carbohydrate (lowest end of what is recommended for lifter currently) =
250 grams
The rest of the calories or about 1,250 would come from fat = 140 grams
Total Food for the Day:
6 ounces of Chicken Breast
3.5 Scoops of Pea Protein
20 oz of Sweet Potato, 16 oz White Potato or Brown Rice, 12 oz of White Rice I
Plantains or 9 oz of Yuca
1 Serving of Fruit
5 TBS of Olive or Avocado Oil
4 TBS Almond Butter
4 Cups Unsweetened Coconut Milk
16 oz Green Beans
16 oz Red Cabbage
16 oz Broccoli
8 oz Carrots
Ok, I don’t think myself or any active male at my bodyweight could kick it on that intake
long-term. But, it’s not horrible and I would guess that after a few days one would leave
the doors open praying some Vegan would steal all their pea protein so they could go to
HopDoddy.
Now, if I want to keep protein intake that high and I take away the Pea Protein it gets
really hard to not blow the water out on carbohydrates and to keep them around 250
grams, to do this I will have to eliminate some veggies and fruit in place of beans and
more nuts. It’s my only chance.
6 ounces of Chicken Breast
18 oz Pinto Beans
4 TBS of Olive or Avocado Oil
8 TBS Almond Butter
4 Cups Unsweetened Coconut Milk
12 oz Green Beans
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12 oz Red Cabbage
12 oz Broccoli
We still get three pounds of veg, but this only gets us to 141 grams of protein (45 grams
short of our goal) and I think this intake is not really feasible long-term for any lifter that I
have met. Also, one could not just jump into this as digestive symptoms will likely present
themselves as this is close to 100 grams of fiber.
So what are the bros to do?
Here is my answer and what I practice. I pay a carbon tax. I have computed everything out,
and for our family it is about 50-60 dollars a month. We make up some ground because
we don’t use much electricity and drive like 10 iles a week, but flights kill us. Yet, we
make sure to give way more than that annually to the Natural Conservancy and the Rain
Forest Alliance.
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