The Big 21 (Part 1)

A few months ago one of the trainers in the gym where I play with barbells told me they never saw me work very hard. I would come in with very light warm up, little stretching, no drama, and perform 10 repetitions each of the front or overhead squat, the snatch, and the clean and jerk with about 50-70% of my max. Fifteen minutes after walking in, I would walk out and get on with my life. Once or twice a week I would spice it up with sort of heavy or sort of fast. This trainer was baffled, but it was just Even Easier Strength. She only saw me do 10 reps in 3 lifts. What she missed was that in 3 months, I had performed 600 reptitions of each of those lifts and that I had increased the weight 4 times. I had clearly gotten stronger (if your 5RM goes up, you're stronger). I hadn't missed a rep. I hadn't gotten hurt. And most importantly for me, I had spent less than 90 minutes in the gym per week (I have grad school and a business to run here, people!).

But she was right; I had not worked hard. However, I warned her, "just wait until June."

One Hard Month (Twice)

One of the key points to Even Easier Strength that a lot of people miss is that it's not always supposed to be easy. It's easy for 10 months a year, but twice a year (maybe 3 for beginners and teenagers) you pick a month to go hard for 10 or so workouts. And I mean HARD. When I looked at my calendar, I picked June. And the program I wanted to do was an old O lifting program from Olympic weightlifting coach Joe Mill. The program dates back the 1950’s and Mill recommended doing it twice a year. Dan John calls the program "The Big 21." It's 21 reps in 3 lifts. 3 times per week for 3 weeks for a total of 9 days. It's meant for advanced lifters, which I certainly am not (I learned the O lifts in January), but I wanted to see what this kind of concentrated effort would yield. And more important to me, after 3 months of easy, I wanted HARD. But to pull a line from The Sandman, "the price of getting what you want is getting what you once wanted."

Dan sent me the spreadsheet for the Big 21 and I plugged in my goal weights. I weigh a consistent 165lbs and I want to clean and jerk 1.5x my body weight and snatch my body weight by 2013. So I took the difference between that and my current max and divided it into two junks (I'll be doing Big 21 again in September) to get my end-of-June goals.

• Clean & Press: 165lbs
• Snatch: 135lbs
• Clean & Jerk: 185lbs

Yes, these are pathetic. And Dan really did his best to hold back the laughter.

But the spreadsheet had no such pity. The total volume of weight I had moved in the 3 months leading to June was 219,000lbs. In the next 3 weeks I would move 64,125lbs. That’s 30% of my 3 month volume in 9 workouts. In roughly 9 total hours. 

For 3 months I had held back and gone easier than I thought I should. Now I was about to go harder than I ever thought I could.

Big 21

Put some plates on the bar. Squat clean it then press it overhead 5 times. Add 5lbs. Repeat. Add 5lbs. Repeat. Add 5lbs. Do a single. Add 5lbs. Do a single. Add 5lbs. Do a single. Add 5lbs. Do a single. Add 5lbs. Do a single. Add 5lbs. Do a single. That was 21 reps and there's 45 more pounds on the bar that rep one. And never miss a rep.

Now do the same for the snatch and never miss a rep. Now do the same for the Clean and Jerk and never miss a rep.

That's Day 1 on the Big 21. Two days later, you come back and add 5lbs to your previous starting weight and do the whole thing again.

On Day 9, there's 45 more lbs on the bar for your starting weight. By the end of Day 9 there's 90 more pounds on the bar than when you started. Oh, and never miss a rep.

Look for my experiences on the Big 21 next week!

Ritual Progress

One day a few weeks ago, I came up up with a workout. This isn’t unusual; it’s kind of my job. I did the workout. Then I had a group of strong female athletes do it. Then I had a strong male athlete do it. Then I had the Coyote Point Kettlebell Club do it. I took notes and feedback. I tweaked. I got better at coaching it and describing it. Then I worked on how to program it for my clients. The workout is called “Green Eggs and H.A.M.” and it goes like this.

1. Grab two bells one size down from your “showing off weight.”
2. Do 10 double cleans.
3. Rack carry “some distance”
4. Do 10 double cleans.
5. Rack carry back.
6. Rest for as long as you need to.
7. Repeat one more time.

This is my job. On paper it looks like a workout. But as I was in a rather contemplative mood, I realized that workouts are more than sets and reps. Workouts are an experience. Sometimes shared. Sometimes solo. But always with a sense of purpose and ritual. My bother (an actor) and I had a conversation about it this weekend and we noted that my work has more in common with performance art that I had ever really considered. Ray Johnson, meet Dan John. 

Rituals

What do you do when you go to church? Shower. Put on church clothes. Go to a certain building at a certain time. Listen to certain expert talk. Sing something you’ve sung 10,000 times or perform a series of actions that you’ve performed 10,000 times before. Catch up with people you’ve known a while. Leave at a certain time.

What do you do when you go to workout? Put on workout clothes. Go to a certain building at a certain time. Listen to a certain expert talk (me). Do something you’ve done 10,000 times (push, pull, hinge, squat, carry, twist). Catch up with people you’ve known a while. Shower. Leave at a certain time.

Every human endeavor has ritual or ceremony to it. Some are obvious, like a wedding. But others are not, like sharing a meal with friends. I was doing both at Kelly John’s wedding two weeks ago when I had a conversation with Sean Greeley. I took him to In N’ Out for the first time. I told him what to order, he told me about the comforts of growing up in the Catholic Church. Without the meaning we ascribe to weddings or meals, it’s just two people who like spending time with each other spending a boatload of other people’s money, or people consuming calories in the same room. The ceremony tells us what we are witnessing or doing is important. It informs us how to act and what to expect.  

The Fog of Progress

Nothing about training your body is fast. In fact, when it comes to the human body only bad things happen quickly. It’d be easy to say that the problem is patience, but it’s more than that. When you start a training program, progress may not even be measurable by the tools you are used to. When my female clients start training with me, the scale usually goes up as the jean sizes go down. for some women this is no less than an existential crisis. They have ritually weighted themselves every day since puberty. It takes a hell of a lot to convince a woman who has seen herself as a “120lb” woman that she will be fitter, healthier, leaner, and hotter at 130lbs because the jeans size number takes so long to catch up. But even deeper than that, habit coach Rob Umfress told me once that he doesn’t think the human brain is even built to notice slow, subtle changes. It can only pick out big changes amidst the background noise of sensory input. So without truly objective results or a level of minute awareness, what hope does we have of maintaining motivation when we are working so hard at something that might not have ever worked for us before? How do we know how to act and what to expect? Why, rituals of course.

Secret Ceremonies

What’s the secret to Green Eggs and H.A.M.? It feels like a workout. It feels like you’ve done something. Do I have my clients do it every day? Of course not; it’s way to hard. But it’s important for all of us to feel like we are making progress, even if it’s just ritualistic. The human body likes slow, but we like fast. The human body likes easy, but hard makes us feel like we are doing something. I recommend SATs every few weeks to actually track progress, but I think that clients need to feel like they are making progress more often than that. Workouts like Green Eggs and H.A.M. or even just an Easy Strength with 6 heavy singles have all the usual indications that we are pushing hard, without putting us into a deep recovery hole. Plus, they’re fun! Everyone remembers the challenging days. We all sit around later and “discuss the hunt.” These are the rituals that tell us to expect progress while keeping us on the consistent path to results.

In Over Your Head

My wife flies around a lot. She’s all important and what-not, so she gets to travel to big cities helping people with her elite lawyering skills. Since these are usually quick trips, she travels with a roller bag, a really big purse, and not me. When it comes time to board the plane, a funny thing happens to her every time she needs to put the roller bag into the overhead bin: a man offers to help her. This probably doesn’t surprise anyone (especially when I mention that my wife is also smoking hot). And I’m certainly not saying it’s rude (I help people put their bags in the overhead bin every time I fly). The reason I think it is funny is because my wife is probably stronger than the majority of the men asking if she needs help with her little 30lb bag. She one arm presses bells way bigger than that. And after all the chivalry, most of the men struggle to get the bag up there.

Maybe it was all the time I spent backpacking in High School instead of dating, but I consider traveling a great test of fitness. There are few times in modern urban living when we have to rely upon our bodies, plans, and wits in order to accomplish a task. And fitness is just the ability to complete a task.

The Task

You’re going someplace. You are leaving your home for a number of days so you put everything you need into a bag. You have to carry that bag, picking it up and putting it down. Pulling it and pushing it this way and that. Twisting with it and squatting down to get things out of it. Pressing it over your head and never letting it leave your sight. You need a certain amount of stuff. Stuff weighs a fixed amount. The weight of the bag should be determined by your needs, not by your physical ability to maneuver that bag. The task has been determined; you must be fit enough to complete it. So when the time comes to put the bag into the overhead bin and you cannot hoist it, the bag is not too heavy; you are too weak.

Overhead

A decently strong man can deadlift 2x his bodyweight; clean, jerk, front squat, and bench press 1.5x his bodyweight; and military press 1x his bodyweight. Clearly, pressing weight overhead is the hardest of static human movements. It requires stability, tension, coordination, breathing, focus, and intensity of the highest order. And the ability to turn that level of strength on is a learned skill. Quite frankly, a person who can press a lot is a person who can do a lot. And getting weight overhead may only be second to carrying it for distance when it comes to life-specific training. Still have doubts? Then why do you think the expression “in over your head” is so evocative?

Pressing Prep

When I meet most of my clients, they are way too jacked up to put weight overhead. It seems to be the first skill we lose to mobility and stability issues. Wall slides, pec stretching, massage, lacrosse balls, and scapular stabilization training are all usually required. But what’s the best bang-for-your buck? Waiter walks. Put the heaviest weight you can cheat up with one hand over your head, and start walking. Keep your elbow locked and your shoulder packed. Keep breathing, but keep your ribcage down for as long as you can. When any of these fail (the abs go, the shoulder shrugs, or the elbow bends), stop! Rest. Cheat the weight up with the other arm and walk back. If you can put a 24kg bell overhead and walk “pretty far” with it in either hand, it’s probably cool to start pressing.

Press a Lot

There is an old Russian joke: “To press a lot, you must press… a lot.” Of all the human movements, pressing seems to respond the best to daily practice. Every gain I have made after my initial newbie bump has been the result of pressing less than I could for as many sets as I could throughout the week. This was either a Grease the Groove program, Even Easier Strength, Easy Strength, or Pavel’s truly excellent Enter the Kettlebell. The principles of all these programs is the same though: press less for more. Pressing is incredibly fatiguing precisely because it is so hard. You have to generate a hell of a lot of tension to get weight overhead. Coincidentally, this also makes it a very handy fat-loss tool. But you have to be careful not to overdo it on reps. Stick to the “Rule of 10” reps and just up the sets. After 2-3 weeks of patient practice, the weight will probably feel light. So move up! That overhead bin just got a whole lot easier to fill.

Traveling is hard. It’s hard on our bodies and fraught with frustration and compromise. Why not begin the journey in the best shape possible for completing it? Pick up heavy things. Carry them. Put them overhead.

Why Kettlebells?

I’ve been “Russian Kettlebell Certified” for a little over 2 years. My logo is a kettlebell. I have kettlebells on my shirts, pants, hoodies; I have kettlebells in my living room, bedroom, and 600lbs of them in my truck. So it’s not surprising when people ask me, “Why kettlebells?” I’m obviously a fan. There are many reasons for this but none of are probably what you think and none of them are dogmatic.

First of all, kettlebells are simple. They are canonballs with a handle. No one is worried about breaking them and they come in a relatively small array of sizes so there’s less wrangling of equipment and accessories. A group can grab a dozen or so in one trip and pile them all up outside in short order. Clean up is quick and no one asks, “how does this thing work.” It’s heavy; you pick it up; sometimes you carry it around. Done.

Secondly, kettlebells are weird. The sizes are weird so it’s less likely someone’s ego is wrapped up in showing off with a 24kg bell instead of a 20kg bell. You just grab one that looks right and monkey around with it. There’s nothing intimidating about them, but they are heavy enough to inspire a sense of conscientious safety. They are also just weird enough that even experienced people keep an open mind about experimenting with them. Do you have 60 incoming college freshmen who’s 300+lb “squat” will probably result in the death and injury of 40% of them by the end of the season? Hand them one 24kg bell, tell them to go all the way down, step back and watch the learning that happens when you take ego out of the equation.

They are convenient. You can buy them anywhere, they require no maintenance and will last two dozen lifetimes. If I want to go to the park or a beach, I can just grab a bell from my trunk. If they get sand or goose poop on them, I just hose them off. You can scatter them around your life to insure that you are never far away from the ability to train (hence my own scattered collection). I’ve been known to bang out an easy strength workout in my school parking lot. I once carried 40kg in each hand for distance in a McDonalds parking lot. You can’t beat that kind of convenience.

They are social. Something as convenient as a kettlebell can be used in contexts far more conducive to fun than a gym. Most of my friends have a bell or two of their own that they can throw in their trunk and join me on the beach. We can each have our own or share. No one gets territorial about a hunk of iron that is impossible to break. We can train in a circle; we can form conga lines of different-sized bells. We can even leave them in a pile and run sprints because no one is going to mess with them. And frankly, anyone who manages to steal a 24kg kettlebell earned it.

They are just better for some kinds of exercises. You can’t really swing a dumbbell. The asymmetry makes pressing, get ups, and jerks more intuitive. The unstable load makes bottoms-up pressing, get ups, squats, and carries a lot more informative. The handle helps you learn to use your grip to generate tension in goblet squats, pressing, and goat bags. And the handle just screams, “pick me up and carry me!” 

They are relatively inexpensive. My entire collection averages around $1.25/lb. None of the bells will expire, rot, or become obsolete. I can do every human movement with them, store them all in milk crates, and loan them out to needy exercisers without much worry. Plus, I have trained four people with a single 16kg bell. That’s value.

Finally, they are attached to pretty excellent system of strength training: the RKC. I could go on and on about the RKC system, but it’s hard to do without sounding like I’m in a cult. So I’ll just say that Mark Reifkind and Brett Jones are Master RKCs. Also some guy in Utah.

Beware of Medium

General James T. Mattis is an interesting guy. When I was playing Marine*, he was the person I most idolized in uniform. General Mattis (Call sign “Chaos” How cool is that?) has been in the Marine Corps since January 1, 1972. He has commanded Marines in every situation from rifle platoon commander; to the commander of the 1st Marine Division’s 17 day, 500 mile sustained march into Baghdad (the longest march in Corps history); to the head of USCENTCOM and one of the key authors of the Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual. In all the diverse billets that General Mattis has held, he has stuck to diligent study of previous wars for guiding wisdom (he assigns hundreds pages of reading to his junior officers), and been an evangelist for the key principle that he has found to be the defining characteristic of success in war: Risk. 

The risks we take in our daily lives—a diving tackle, asking someone out, karaoke— are quaint and petty compared to the risks of combat. But Mattis is not an evangelist for managing risk. He’s also not an evangelist for acting brashly or even boldly. He’s an evangelist for the paradoxes of risk:

• Sometimes the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be.
• Sometimes the more force is used, the less effective it is.
• The more successful the counterinsurgency is, the less force can be used and the more risk must be accepted.
• Sometimes, doing nothing is the best reaction.

The lesson that General Mattis has learned is that the delivery of force (i.e. blowing things up and killing bad guys) needs to be simultaneously slow and fast. Marines need the courage to show great restraint, even when being fired upon. But when the opportunity arises to eliminate enemies (and only enemies) Marines need the courage to act with the upmost ferocity. And knowing they can act with more ferocity allows Marines to show more restraint. The two qualities feed each other and drive progress. By sacrificing either of these qualities in the name of “safety,” you create an environment of compromise. You slide to the middle and progress stalls.

"Every Attempt To Make War Easy and Safe Will Result in Humiliation and Disaster" 

If you don’t know why I’m talking about all this war stuff, then I suspect you have been cruising on medium for a long time. Medium is the same. The status quo. Medium is when you run 5 miles every day; do chest every Monday; or can’t remember the last time you improved a lift or dropped a pound of fat. Medium is a rut of risk averse behavior that sacrifices improvement for fear of doing too much or too little. Ever do a recovery run that turned into a tempo run? Ever go in for a light workout that kicked your butt? Ever read US Weekly while on the elliptical or between sets of curls? You’re on medium.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, everything in nature has a wave pattern to it. Intensity followed by recovery done consistently leads to progress... eventually. If you look at the park bench workouts (Easy Strength, the 40 Day Program, Grease the Groove), there is no medium. There’s “pretty easy” peppered with “pretty tough” for about a month, then you move up in weight. Twice a year, you throw in a month of bus bench workouts (Big 21, ETK, RTK, Kettlebell Muscle, Afternburn, 5/3/1, etc., whatever) and you have a lot of intensity (read: hard). Then you go back to the park bench stuff and you have the recovery (read: easy). The result is the weight keeps going up. If it doesn’t, you try a different wave of intensity followed by more recovery. But you have to have the courage to go hard enough then the courage to go easy enough for months at a time. And after years and years of slowly nudging up the progress, sometimes you even have to have the courage to stop altogether and reassess your path. And by “stop” I mean “STOP.” And by “altogether” I mean for a few months. After all those years of “up” you might need a bit of “down.”

So if you know you’re at medium, what do you need to do? You need to go harder or go easier. And if one of those sounds more appealing than the other, then you probably need to do the opposite one. Have the courage to embrace the paradox and beware of medium.

*So we're clear, I was never a Marine. I was not selected for, did not attend, nor complete OCS. I was an officer candidate from November of 2008 to February of 2010 and that alone was enough to be a formative experience in my life. The picture is actually Gunnery Sergeant Mata yelling and my friend Gram. I'm 3rd in line to get fucked with.