I HATE WORKING OUT

My confession: I hate working out. I’m over it. I’ve been lifting since 1989. That’s a long time to be sore.

I’ve done all the lifts. I’ve done all the programs. I’ve done all the protocols and systems. I even invented some along the way. I’m fucking tired.

So now I’m trying to determine why I still do it. I remember a friend of mine in marketing telling me, “People are most motivated by fear of loss”.
So, that’s the simple reason: I don’t want to lose what I spent most of my life trying to achieve. Though I’m not sure if I’m ok with just routine maintenance….just keeping the jalopy on the road. I would like to think I can still improve.

But it has to be more than fear of loss. It would be easy to justify quitting. Have you noticed the average 40+ male? I think I’m ahead of the game. I could quit working out and still be in better shape than anyone at my 30 year high school reunion.

So what is it that keeps me in the gym?

I HATE SELF-INFLICTED MEDIOCRITY! 99.999% of everything you do is a choice. Most people that aren’t sociopaths will instinctively choose things that society deems appropriate…wash your hands after you poop, don’t kill anyone, don’t beat your kids or pets, etc. These are rules we follow to get along with other human beings. But what about the less obvious choices that either make us better or keep us in a mire of self-loathing?

You get up, you follow all rules of hygiene, you don’t kill anyone or beat your kids or pets…so far so good. Then you CHOOSE to eat a half-dozen donuts…you didn’t have to eat something crappy…you CHOSE to. Then you feel like shit, you make excuses…”didn’t have time, blah blah”….BULLSHIT. Not having time for a good meal is still a choice…you fucked up way before you realized you fucked up. This becomes a pattern. You have CHOSEN mediocrity. Which is cool if that’s what you want. But don’t complain about it, because this is what you have chosen. It’s YOUR fault. YOU fucked up. YOU are to blame.

I refuse to be the catalyst for my own demise.
Is skipping a workout more comfortable? Yes.
Is eating shitty food easier? Yes.
Is giving up easy? Yes.
Do I want to wake up in 10 years and wonder why I look and feel like crap? NO.

So, here is my (very) basic plan for not accidentally on purpose waking up a hot mess:

1)Schedule your workouts like it’s a priority The key to this is to be honest and realistic. Don’t schedule 2-a-days knowing that it’s damn near impossible. I lift 3 days a week for 60 minutes, and do 1 day of metabolic training. That’s it. I get in, work hard, move on. You may need to find a workout buddy to keep you on track. Or hire a personal trainer to keep you on schedule. Or just quit being a pussy by making excuses.

2)Schedule your food Know what and when you are going to eat the day before. Even if you plan on eating crap, write it down. Now you OWN it. It’s a choice. You can’t say “it was an accident”. You will eventually notice it’s just as easy to eat healthy than it is to eat poorly. I’m not saying you have to eat “perfect” every day (whatever that is). What I’m saying is that you need to own up to your choices.

3)Schedule your fun By far, this is where people fuck up the most. I know, you’re like “but, Ethan, I want it to be spontaneous.” Fuck that. You can’t handle spontaneous. Spontaneous takes resources and time you probably don’t have. I know about 2 people that can have spontaneous fun. They have a shit-ton of money. Like, buying a Lamborghini with cash kind of money. You don’t have that. If you do, send me a private message. You will find that you will spend more time thinking about how to enjoy yourself and your family. More importantly, you won’t fill that time with other BS.

4)Surround yourself with like-minded bad-asses If your friends suck, you will suck too. This has been proven scientifically and sociologically. Find some people that share your same vision and goals; People that will make you feel guilty when you make the wrong choice. Unfortunately, this means getting rid of the ass-anchors that hold you down. Or at least learning to ignore them.

5)Know your goals How can you possibly make wise choices that will advance you to greatness if you don’t even know what that greatness is? This is why I still lift even though I don’t enjoy it like I used to. It fits with my goals. Most people have seen my “success flow chart”. If not, here it is:

No, it’s not always that simple. But most of the time it is.

I’m obviously no guru or master of anything (I’d be the one buying Lambos with cash), but I know this: life is all about choices, and sometimes choosing the things you NEED to do rather than the things you WANT to do puts you in a better situation than you would ever plan (or not plan) to be in.

The Secret Is Out (Building a Diamond)

Thanks to my good friend Bryan Krahn, the programming I’ve been using with my clients and myself for 13 years as a combo metabolic conditioning/strength building/boredom smashing workout has been made public. If you missed his post, you can read it here: http://www.bryankrahn.com/lose-fat-by-building-muscle
He calls it the “Kidney Shitter”. I’ve always called it a “Ladder,” but since the former is scary and the term “Ladder” is used for a different type of strength programming, I have decided to call it the “Diamond Protocol”. This sounds very James Bond-ish and sexy, and it actually describes the layout of the program well.

The Options: I’ve used this same protocol in a variety of ways, but here are the 3 main options:

1)Antagonist Muscle Groups: biceps/triceps, chest/back, etc.

2)Compound Legs: ham & glute dominant/quad dominant

3)Full-Body: Leg/Push/Pull

The Setup: This workout requires some planning the first few times you do it. The more exercises you know, the more fun this can be. You will need 6-9 exercises. This means that if you are doing antagonist muscle groups(i.e. biceps/triceps), you will need at least 3 exercises for biceps, and 3 for triceps. If you are doing full-body, you will need at least 2 leg, 2 push, and 2 pull. I recommend just going with a 6 exercise Diamond to start. If you do the quick math, at minimum, you will be doing 36 sets. At the max. end with 9 exercises you will be doing 81 sets. Yes, you read that right; 9 sets of 9 exercises = 81.

You will do one exercise, rest 20-60 seconds (less rest for the beginning and end of the diamond, more for the middle), then do that same exercise again and add one more, short rest, then 1 and 2, then add another. So on and so forth. When you get to the apex, you start subtracting off the front end.

The programming for a 9 exercise diamond looks like this:

1
1,2
1,2,3
1,2,3,4
1,2,3,4,5
1,2,3,4,5,6
1,2,3,4,5,6,7
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
3,4,5,6,7,8,9
4,5,6,7,8,9
5,6,7,8,9
6,7,8,9
7,8,9
8,9
9

HEY, THAT’S A FUTHER MUCKIN’ DIAMOND!

The Weights: You should choose a weight of which you could do 20 reps with difficulty. You can also do bodyweight (pushups, pull-ups, jump squats, jumping split squats, etc.), sprints, jumprope, or crazy stuff like sled-pushes.

The reps: your rep range is going to be 8-15. Why is this such a wide range, you ask? Because you won’t be changing the weights you choose at the beginning, and like I mentioned before: YOU COULD BE DOING 81 SETS! This means that at the beginning, you may be hitting 15 reps of an exercise, and toward the end it will only be 8 before you fail. If you want to go the more H.I.I.T or Supramax training route, you could do 30-60 seconds of bodyweight or cardio-esque exercises also.

The Time: This is what always surprises people. The 6 exercise diamond, when done correctly, will take about 18-35 minutes (yup, 36 sets in 18 minutes). The 9 exercise diamond will take close to an hour. How is it possible that you can do 81 sets in an hour? Simple answer: you ain’t resting much, Jack. Your rest time is capped at 60 seconds, and for most of the diamond it’s going to be less.

The Frequency: Do not do this protocol more than 3 times a week if it’s your primary way you want to work, and no more than once a week if you are supplementing your normal lifting program. It’s just too taxing on your neurological system and recovery gets to be an issue.
Keep in mind too my basic rules: http://www.thestrongerlife.com/muscle-less-bs/ . Never stick to one type of training, rep range, set range, or modality. The Diamond is yet another tool in the toolbox.

The Results: I have used this for years with great results in strength, hypertrophy, and metabolic increases for me and my clients. Several years ago when I was really into developing this system, my own BMR when testing on a gas-exchange test after doing ONLY this type of workout for over a year was around 2400 calories. Translation: my metabolism was cranking’.
I was 192 lbs. at around 8-9% body fat, and my bench, squat, and deadlift tested at around 80% of my 1 RM from the previous year of doing traditional absolute strength training; However, my 10 rep max was SIGNIFICANTLY higher in all those lifts, and my heart rate recovery was wicked fast. The only reason I quit doing this as my primary workout programming is because I got bored with it after a couple years. Now that I’ve been doing traditional bodybuilding splits for a while, I’ve gone back to using a diamond as my conditioning/metabolic training at the end of the week. It’s also my go-to when a willing Canadian Bro like Bryan Krahn comes into town and wants to do something crazy for arms.

The Warning: The diamond is no joke. I have used it for all populations by just adjusting the type of exercises (a bicep curl is going to be significantly less stressful than a dumbbell snatch), but even at the “easy” end this can be a rough one for people. Just like any program, start slow and get comfortable with it. Most importantly, NEVER SACRIFICE FORM FOR REPS!!!

3 THINGS THAT PUSSIFIED YOU AFTER 30 (AND HOW TO FIX IT)

You can ignore this if:

a)You are over 30 and as much of a bad ass as you were at 25 (or whenever your peak badassness was).

b)You were never bad ass to begin with. Congratulations, you are starting with a clean slate. Skip to the second part of this post.

c)You are under the age of 30 and still full of opportunities and hard-ons.

For everyone else, male or female, you fucked up…probably.

I went to a reading by Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, a couple weekends back. He mentioned that his characters have a central theme of “becoming what they were destined to be no matter how they started out”. Then he said something brilliant that stuck with me. I’m paraphrasing, but essentially it was something like, “Men start out following a path that they were told was correct: They go to college, they get married, they find a job, they have kids, they buy a house, they make money. But this only takes them to their 30’s. After that, you have no more path to follow, so you sit around being bored and thinking about who you were supposed to be and most likely never becoming that person”.
This got me thinking: As I get older, I see a definitive difference between the men (and women) that have chosen to accept their boring-ass lives, and the ones who continually strive to be better…to be a reinvention of themselves every 3 years. So, if you are noticing that there is a big space where your balls used to be, I’m here with your explanation (and solution).

1) YOU STOPPED COMPETING Think about it. You used to be competitive. Whether it was sports, grades, or trying to get laid, you were thinking about how to win. At some point you stopped caring about winning and started caring about “just getting by”. Oh, and watching your local sporty-ball team compete, doing a charity 5-K, or having the “best looking lawn in the neighborhood” doesn’t count as competing, you pussy.

2)YOU SETTLED FOR PHYSICAL MEDIOCRITY Call it “dad-bod” or “mom-bod”, but whether you admit it or not, you look like shit. Whether he or she admits it or not, your significant other thinks you look like shit. When did this become acceptable? If women and men quit settling for mediocrity in their mate, the demand for physical prowess would go up. Yea, this is a society problem, but the solution to all problems starts with YOU.

3)YOU STARTED HANGING OUT WITH OTHER PUSSIES Your friends are weak. They talk about “the way things used to be”. They have settled into no.1 and no.2 very comfortably. You are a product of who you hang out with.
I hang out with some bad ass people. Some of them can lift cars, some of them can knock people out, some of them can disassemble and reassemble an automobile in a weekend. You need cooler friends. Or, even better, you need to make yourself the example of badassery your friends can follow.

Thanks for making me feel like a pussy, Ethan. How do I fix it?

1) FIND YOUR “THING” Everyone has one. I know someone that does competitive flower arranging. No shit. That’s a thing. But she competes and wins awards.
If you don’t have a “thing” get one.
I’m biased because I’m a Jiu-Jitsu guy, but combat sports/martial arts, is great for beginners. The environment is generally friendly, and the opportunity to compete on a regular basis is there. It will also help you with your mediocre physique. But if your thing is chess, find a competitive chess league. There are competitions for pretty much any activity.
Note: this is not the same thing as a hobby. You need to be in a competitive environment in which you are challenging yourself. If there isn’t a chance for losing, it isn’t a competition.

2) LIFT SOME WEIGHTS, STOP EATING CRAP This seems simplified, I know. I truly believe that most of the world’s problems would be fixed if everyone lifted some heavy shit 4-5 hours a week and stayed out of the drive-thru. You need a plan though. Hire a good personal trainer that gets results with his/her clients. It’s worth the investment to learn how to get results as efficiently as possible. Remember, you will be doing this for the rest of your life. Read this for help: www.thestrongerlife.com/muscle-less-bs

3) BECOME A LEADER AND OTHERS WILL FOLLOW A magical thing happens when you start improving yourself: the people around you either do the same or disappear. Everyone has ass-anchors. These are the people that hold you back and keep you weighed down. The easiest way to ditch the ass anchors is to improve yourself. Your real friends will become apparent. The ones that keep you from your potential badassery will bond together and talk shit about you behind your back. It’s called jealousy.

5 LIFE LESSONS FROM THE GYM

“It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.”
-Henry Rollins

Damn right, Hank.

For 26 years I have been around the iron (and 1 year the shitty brown Weider plastic). I have been in smelly gyms with steroid addled freaks, clean gyms with high-end clientele, hot warehouses with only a handful of dumbbells, air-conditioned high-tech sports clubs, and every variation in-between. I have learned the lessons that the gym can teach us about life.
Below are 5 that seem to have a commonality among other iron initiated people. No particular order on these.

1) Failure is temporary(and necessary) Think about how many times you’ve “failed” in the gym. What do you next time? You try again…one more rep…5 more pounds. Then you succeed. Then you fail again. Then you try again. Sound familiar? You read it in every successful person’s biography.

2) Be confident but humble There is a very large difference between confidence and arrogance. You CAN’T be arrogant with 500 lbs. You will learn a lesson in pain you won’t soon forget. You CAN believe in yourself and in your abilities. Everyday challenges are overcome by the confident, by the person that can believe they have the gifts, the training, the environment to succeed. Arrogant people think they have the right to succeed, that it is OWED to them. Arrogant people get punched in the nose.

3) Some days just suck Guess what? Today might suck. Today might suck in every possible way. You know what else? It probably won’t suck as bad tomorrow. Some times you just aren’t feeling it. You don’t always have to be “on”. It’s ok. You don’t beat yourself up over it.

4) Results correlate directly with effort The philosopher Seneca said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. Yea, pretty much…unless it’s a lottery winner. They’re just lucky pricks.
In the weight room, no one ever says, “Dude got lucky and squatted 650″. You succeed because you put in the work.

5) Don’t be a dick More politely: Don’t judge others. Everyone has their own path. Maybe YOUR goals are completely different from someone else’s. Maybe someone totally digs being a barista. Don’t get pissed at them if they don’t want to be a CEO. Maybe someone is cool just running on the treadmill. Don’t hate because they aren’t under the squat bar twice a week. You don’t know most people’s situation or goals. Just let them do them. You do you.*

*I have to add a caveat on this one. I am a trainer and an educator. I feel like I have a responsibility to help others find a better way to reach their goals. Some people do weird crap in the gym because they just don’t know a better way. In this instance, I feel like it is my responsibility to intervene. If you have a special skill or experience, it is ok to help someone struggling. But you still can’t be a dick about it.

Thanks to everyone on Facebook that sent me their personal “lessons.” I was not really surprised that most of them correlated. Those that know, know.

ENTER STICKMAN

Even seemingly rational and educated people seem to throw common sense out the window when they step into the weight room. So, I started a fun little series of crappy drawings called “Stickman Biomechanics” on Facebook explaining basic biomechanics and to give people some pause before they “just do it, Brah”.
Below are 2 that people really seemed to enjoy, 1 that really pissed people off, and 1 bonus new one.
ENTER STICKMAN.

Smith Machine vs. Free Weights

smith machine stickman — The thought is that the smith machine is “safer”. The problem is that the fixed path (whether linear or angled) causes stress on shoulders, elbows, spine, hips, and knees because you are forcing an unnatural angle onto these joints.

I see a lot of injuries from peeps loading up the smith machine to “safely max out” on bench, deadlifts, and shoulder presses. The thought is that the smith machine is “safer”. The problem is that the fixed path (whether linear or angled) causes stress on shoulders, elbows, spine, hips, and knees because you are forcing an unnatural angle onto these joints. Adding to possible damage from the unnatural path of motion on the joint, lifters will load a crap-ton of weight because a smith machine is “safer”.
Better choice? Use a squat cage with self spotters or use a (competent) human spotter. I’m not saying the smith is useless, I’m just saying don’t trick yourself into thinking it’s safe. BTW, the smith is a terrible way to “get used to squatting”. The mechanics and inherent stabilization does not teach proper squat movement.

Walking Lunges on a Treadmill (the one that pissed people off)

Walking Lunge stickman — I think the drawing is self-explanatory, but if you have 2 oposing forces that are focused on the knee, you will get shear in that joint. Now do this for 30-45 minutes and you are just destroying cartilage.

Man, I caught bunch of shit for this one from physique prep coaches. So many people have been told to do these by their trainer (or by a magazine) that they have just become part of the process. Ignorant prep coaches still prescribe this to “really lean out the hamstrings and glutes.” Phshhh…that’s dumb. ANY exercise you do while prepping will bring out the hams and glutes. Why? BECAUSE YOU ARE IN A CALORIE DEFICIT! I could prescribe hand-jive and you would lean out your hamstrings if you are on a prep diet.
FYI…lunges are a crappy hamsting/glute exercise anyways. You would be much better off doing deadlift variations and hip thrusts.

hand jive — For leaner hamstrings during prep…just hand-jive

Why Does a Barbell Press Feel Different than a Dumbbell Press?

stickman bench press — Definition: resultant n (Physics / General Physics) a single vector that is the vector sum of two or more other vectors

The answer is a basic physics. Friction created by your hands on a fixed bar as you lift creates a secondary force. This secondary force, coupled with the force of gravity, creates a resultant which changes the angle of resistance. The resultant is especially prevalent if you take a wide grip.
NOTE: the more you push your hands out or in on the press changes the angle of resistance even more. This is also why pushups feel so different. The resultant is created by the force of gravity and the friction of your hands on the floor (do pushups on a slippery floor and “feel the burn”).

Bonus: Deadlifting or Squatting with socks is NOT old school, it’s just dumb

Those slippery socks are creating a force which must be counteracted by your adductors to keep you from doing the splits with 405 on your ball sack (or female equivalent)

I get it…you want to lift “old school”, but you have dirty feet or toe fungus. Thanks for leaving your socks on, Bilbo. However, there is a problem with this that may be affecting your lift: those slippery socks are creating a force which must be counteracted by your adductors to keep you from doing the splits with 405 on your ball sack (or female equivalent). You may not even notice it…but your muscles and nervous system do.

The secondary issue is that those two opposing forces can wreak havoc on your knee joint. Maybe not immediately, but over time. And guess what causes most catastrophic knee injuries? Prolonged and repetitive crappy movement patterns. No one actually blows their ACL stepping off a curb. Their ACL blows when they step off a curb because their ACL is weak from 10 years moving like a dumb-ass.
The same force happens if you squat in socks also, especially on a platform. In fact, this may create even greater stress on the knee due to the greater knee flexion inherent in a squat.
So, maybe you go get a good pair of shoes. Those can be “old school” too.

If you read this all the way to the end, I really appreciate it. If you have some positive input for me, let me know.