An Update

Thanks to friends on twitter for griefing me into writing an update:

• The gym is now 7 years old; we have 2 employees who are a really great fit and are continuing to steadily grow. Time-efficient strength training seems to have a market niche that would be worthy of your attention if you’re looking to start a business.
• I still weigh 175lbs +- 3lbs. Years of continued interest and effort in moving the needle without getting fat have not changed that. In some ways, having the same body at 40 as I had at 30 is an achievement. Also: Al Kavadlo filmed something similar recently.
  • An observation I once made to James Steele II: if there wasn’t a hard limit on muscle gains and it was just a function of hard work x time, the all of the super heavyweight competitors in a bodybuilding show or powerlifting meet would just be the oldest competitors by training age.
    • These are weight class sports, regardless of one’s age.
  • This not to say that I’m not continually scheming and trying to overcome this limit, become fitter, look better. This is why I’ve also done trail racing on low volume, and currently use the Carol bike as a high effort cardio outlet for competition and seeing something improve. Challenge yourself, as Clarence Bass said.
• As per the above: I get to come to work and be the expert of people who want to see me and interact with me. I save for retirement, pay my bills, send my kids to camp etc. with this one gym working < 40 hours a week (now, not at the beginning). We’re slowly moving the business and systems toward growth and further backgrounding me so that the service and the business is the asset, not my 25 years experience, graduate degree, and perception of self-importance and value. There are worst jobs I could have bought.
  • This is a value judgement: I have colleagues who sincerely believe that their business is the only “good” HIT business and everyone else is an idiot because they haven’t grown into a multi-territory monster or franchised or licensed their IP. These are all marks of a (typically) well-run business, but it may not support what that person values in their life.
    • If businesses are immortality projects, they’re not great. My children don’t know who the fuck Steve Jobs is and I submit that unless their parents are frothing-at-the-mouth fanboys, most children won’t know either. So much for denting the universe.
• I’ve been enjoying the longevity videos of Brad Stanfield and have wondered if something for exercise + strength training (with an eye toward longevity) would be an enjoyable endeavor for me to embark on.

Since you’ll ask, here’s my current training & diet:

• I use an upper/lower split on an A/B/A, B/A/B schedule, meaning each muscle gets hit about every 5th day. Total volume hovers around 4 sets per muscle per week split between nearly as many exercises. Sometimes I do drop sets or rest-pause sets, but am not convinced of their value above and beyond concentric failure. I do them because of the the pump they provide.

• On my lower body days I do Carol bike sprints at the end of my workout. This has not affected progress to any substantial degree I can detect (to be sure: it’s only an extra 40-60 seconds of HIGH EFFORT pedaling. It’s practically a high rep finisher for the quads.) This is done for another market of progress in *something*.
  • There’s also data that suggests Resisted Sprint Intervals do not change strength or hypertrophy response when performed in close proximity to a resistance training session.
  • There’s enough data that such HIIT work does improve central cardiovascular adaptations, contrary to what was previously thought. I tell clients that Strength/Muscle and VO2 are the most predictive aspects of fitness insofar as all-cause mortality/relative risk, which is true. Since central adaptations are part of the VO2 equation, it’s a very small (<8 minutes) investment every 5th day to nudge that stat in my direction AND it sets me up for embarking on longer specific conditioning for trail races etc.
    • I *could* do my workouts in a “Project Total Conditioning” fashion and get nearly the same effect but I wouldn’t like it as much. It would be a fun short term challenge and I’ve even fashioned a bodyweight version for my garage if I wanted to do an 8 week challenge but it is just that, not a long-term sustainable routine.
• If pressed for time or feeling tired (4 kids) I’ll revert 1x/1x for a week or two before increasing the frequency.
• Diet is largely “If it fits your macros” with a lower carb bend. This year is the first year in probably a decade (my oldest is turning 10, so that tracks) where I’ve started tracking with specific phases. When I’m cutting (think beach trip on Memorial Day weekend) the carbs come down to < 150/day and calories come down too. The rest of the year I’ve set my calories to try to gain at a rate of 2lbs/month in line with the current natty gain rate limit suggestion. I’ll do a “mini cut” as needed, before doing a longer cut leading up to the beach every year.
• Supplements? Creatine, TMG, Fish Oil, D3/K2, Boron are mainstays.

Final point: if you’re going to be in this for the long game (til’ you die) then the training needed to be the most intolerance you can tolerate. This is going to be seasonal with your life; I’ve spent the better part of 10 years training mostly 1 day per week strength and “Cardio” (supporting the trail races I did) but now middle age has me staring down the back half of my life, which includes things like colonoscopies (2 down, no cancer), the aging and death of loved ones, therapy to see around the corners of our worst tendencies, children growing older and into themselves, sibling changes, and the inevitability of decline. I’ve set a goal of getting as jacked as possible by 42, 2 years from now, which may result in nothing but is a nice anchor to focus on progression as possible, keeping the daily farming of diet and health guiding toward a future harvest.

Which is to say: how can you structure your training so that you actually ENJOY the hard work you’re embarking on? I can do well on 1x/1x training as above, but I do enjoy the concentrated effort of a split.

If you need permission to experiment, you have it from me. Just don’t hurt yourself!