I was leaving a client meeting yesterday, driving back home and decided to call my buddy Tommy Rambo to see what's up. Tommy is a Marine veteran whom I've known and use to work with for 15 years. Like a lot of guys as they approach 40, he wasn't exercising like he should and was hanging around 205 lbs. Finally, about 4 years ago, he got back into training in his basement. At the time, I hadn't spoken to him in over a year and called to check in. This is what I get right at the start. "Hey, I'm on a fitness kick, I've bought some of those kettlebells. You ever use them? Great workout, I'm down to 190....feel great, having a scotch as we speak, let's hook up....
I went to his house, showed him some tips for his swing and clean form, we did a quick workout and then went out for scotch and prime rib. Since then, Tommy has really gotten into bodyweight training. He ordered Convict Conditioning, and was hooked. So hooked that he's done podcasts as a guest speaker! Check him out: http://reddeltaproject.com/fit-after-40-w-tommy-rembiszewski/
I'm not a podcast guy, but this is good stuff from a good man.
So as I was speaking to him, he was gushing how, instead of working out 6 days a week he's dropped it down to 5 and his workouts have been insane. It's just funny how everything runs parallel, I told him, I've dropped my workout frequency to every other day, under 20 minutes and have maintained strength without the soreness. A lot of times people workout because, they LIKE it, it's a hobby. But do your really need to?
Minimum Effective Dose: I first heard of this in the 4-Hour Body by famed lifehack/human laboratory Tim Ferriss. The MED is simply the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome and anything BEYOND the MED is wasteful. As I said in my last blog, when water hits 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it doesn't need to get to 213 to boil. It's not a myth. It's the law of diminishing returns. There comes a point where one begins hurting themselves instead of helping. If you like going balls to the wall 6 days a week, my advice would be: find another hobby.
Flippant last sentence aside, the workout Ferriss recommended was a High Intensity Interval Training workout where one set is taken to complete failure at 7 reps. 2 x a week, 5 second cadence lifting, 5 second cadence negative. It's called Occam's Protocol and sounds like absolute torture if you use free weights. Here is a website with everything you need. http://www.occamsprotocol.com/
According to the book and the website, if you eat correctly and take supplements, you will put on muscle. The other 5 days of the week, recover and let the muscle tissue rebuild and recover. As with all things lifting, 80% of your success depends on what you lift to your face and place in your pie hole. HIIT goes back to Arthur Jones and his Nautilus weight machines from the 1970's.
I did this style workout about 5 years ago with kettlebells, but didn't use the 5 second cadence for about a month. I really liked it, but just never got back to it. It went something like:
Workout 1
Military Press 2 x 5, 1 x 1 rep below failure
Rows, same
Front squats 2 x 5, 1 x 1 rep below failure
Double Snatch same. (this exercise 2 below failure is better)
Workout 2
Floor Press Same as above
Rows
Lunges (I remember having the shakes in my legs 2 hours later)
Double swings x 25
If you want to learn more about non-kettlebell related HIIT workouts, go to my friend/colleague Jenna's website. www.cardiocraving.com
A lot of great information, especially for the fairer gender.
Back to my theory on the MED. As I was finishing the Long Haul program, the workouts, toward the end got so intense, that I figured I needed to get as much rest as I could to recover. So it's been over 6 weeks of this. After taking a few days off because of Sales Kickoff for my company in Denver, I started another More Kettlebell Muscle program called Lucky 13. 3 days a week, 8 rep press max for bells. Chose 55's I decided to do it in a chain style workout which in my opinion, are more torturous than complexes because they spread the fatigue around.
A chain means doing a sequence of movements and then repeat. For example,
Double Swing x 1
Double Clean x 1
Reverse Lunge x 1L, 1R
See saw press x 1L, 1R
Repeat this sequence 5 times. That's 1 round.
It looks innocent until the second half of the chain. Then the fatigue starts setting in. In week 1, the workouts are only about 10 minutes long, because there are only 3 rounds. I did have to drop after the first round to 45's on heavy day, because my kettlebell nemesis, the 110 lb double snatch almost took my head off on the last link of the chain. Which leads to the question, other than my ego being stroked, is it really going to make a difference if I use 55's vs 45's on heavy day? No.
What has resulted since I've started taking every other day off is a complete lack of soreness. Aches and pains from doing the Rite of Passage are non-existent. My workouts are strong. I have been able to keep my diet in check. My weight is steady in the 187 range. I haven't lost anything conditioning wise. I ran 4 miles in Denver during a fun run and didn't stop. First 1.5 was easy breezy then, the high altitude kicked in and I huffed and puffed and grinded to the finish. I actually have gotten into the habit of enjoying the days off. This week, I decided to do an low volume, workout with heavy weights during one of my days off. It was a mistake. I felt tired and like complete trash when I woke up on a day when I had to do a Lucky 13 workout. I waited until Noon to recover a little more.
Do I still get the itch to do more? Yes, because it's something I like to do. It can be hard to walk away from the weights after 10 minutes. I still have something left in the tank, usually about 1/2-3/4 worth. Being winter and not all that warm out, I'm less likely to want to go for a run and I won't do sprints with road sand on the streets. That's asking for a wipeout. Today was a nice day, I finished easy day in about 12 minutes and took my Daisy for a 30 minute slow walk. She's almost 12 and can't go running anymore so, we strolled and she kept looking at me with a smile and love that only a golden retriever is capable of giving.
Will I go back to more days? Yes, once the weather gets nicer, I'll be more active. But any lifting more than 3-4 days isn't necessary for me at this time. At this juncture, I'm more about health and conditioning vs. pressing half my body weight.
Go Pats!
