Strengthconomics

I've been hearing a lot of good things after the dead lifting last week. Many people hit PRs. And the veterans raised the bar high for the newly assimilated group. That's awesome! So good to hear.

Here's a few more things to remember:

1. Strength increases incrementally and very slowly. If you lift 135 one day and then 136 a few weeks later, and then 137 later still, you're heading in the right direction regardless of the time interval. In my opinion the slower the better. Fast gains don't last long unless they're cemented with a lot of intensity and believe me, you don't want to go through that. Imagine putting like 40 pounds on your dead lift in 5 weeks and then spending another 5 weeks beating the gains deep into your bones and muscles with very heavy and high intensity repetitions. It's excruciating. So the more incremental and progressive, the better.

2. Take small bites. This relates to what is above. If you know your max is 150. Don't shoot for 200 out of no where. You're going to fail, most likely, and you'll be demoralized and too tired going into your next attempts. Let the strength express itself surely and confidently. Trust me on this. Don't go for broke until you've secured yourself.

3. Aspire for excess strength. This is a little harder to grasp so I'll draw an analogy. Imagine young Billy (that's you). Young Billy is saving up to buy a new bike (a goal.. like running a fast mile or doing a lot of push ups or setting a new PR.) He's working hard and stacking his ones (money = strength). He opened a savings account so that he can keep all of his money in a safe place. Also he knows that as his money pile grows, it accrues interest and keeps growing. So every time he throws a buck or two into his account, he's not only moving closer to his goal of purchasing a bike, he's also making more off of what he has already earned. So if young Billy is smart and takes his dad's (Me) advice and saves a bit more than what his bike will put him out, he'll have some left with which to keep building his savings. If he blows it all out on the bike with nothing left, then he has to start from scratch. So it would be in Billy's interest to save up a lot more than what his bike cost. How much more? That depends on how much that bike means to Billy. In any case, is there such thing as saving too much? No.. Spending too much? Yes. If Billy is at Zero or very low and has a lot of bikes he wants, then he's outta luck really quick and will be frustrated. If he saves a ton of money, he can buy his bikes and skateboards and just about anything else he wants and still maintain a surplus. But that requires the foresight of savings and investing.

Read that a few times. It'll click.

Remember, strength feeds conditioning. Conversely, conditioning eats away at strength. Has anyone ever felt stronger after a couple hundred slam balls? Hopefully not. So the more strength you have at your disposal, the less taxing a set of slam balls will be and the more you can do in general without having it kill you.

** Your lungs are a different story, but strength helps avoid metabolic fatigue as well. **

What this means:

You can't have it all. If you want maximal strength, you have to give up maximal conditioning. But we're not working with polar ends so we can play with it. If you want to gain strength, you'll have to surrender some conditioning and visa-versa. But since strength is an investment, it's probably a good idea.

Important:

You're gonna have to eat to get strong. No two ways about it. Strengths comes from systemic stress and recovery. Stress is short (workouts) and recovery is longer and consists of sleep, rest, water, and food. If you're not eating to get stronger, you're not going to get stronger. Period.

Next week, many of you will get an opportunity to meat our new Dietitian and she's going to present some awesome info that will help you all out a lot. Trust me. And trust her.

Here's a glimpse at my approach: These are just the simple rules I follow for myself. It's not what I WANT to eat. It's what I NEED to eat. Trust me, I like what I eat, and the things most people want make me sick and knock me out for hours.

Protein: Most important. Eat in abundance. 1 gram per pound of BW. 30% of total intake. Building blocks of recovery. What your body is made of. Invest in quality. If you can afford the best, buy the best. Avoid incomplete proteins. Flesh builds flesh.

Fat: Super important. Fuels the recovery. Helps the central nervous system recover. Composes hormones. Makes me happy.

Carbs: Fuels effort. Makes workouts possible. Earn them. Only things that grown in the ground count. Nothing in a wrapper. Greens and tubers mostly. Limit fruits. No grains, ever. No legumes. Limit nuts. Nothing that sticks to my teeth. No sugar added, ever. I love sauerkraut.

Coffee: Yes, please! May I have some more? I'll just take the whole pot, thanks. I'll definitely reduce the intake sometime soon though as I feel like my adrenal glands are completely shot and I'm incompetent without it.

**These are my personal approaches to eating to get strong. I've seen huge fluctuations in my strength from various dietary experiments so it plays a huge role. Again, this works for ME and may not work for others.

I trained my metabolism to prefer fat as a fuel source, so yes, I thrive on bacon but I really don't eat that much of it since it doesn't take much. But not everyone does. Also fats have a higher satiety and may make me too full, too early in my eat-a-thons.

I "Earn" my carbs. Meaning I use them for training. So if I'm sitting on the couch all day, I don't eat any. If I'm blasting around the track for sprints and lifting and hustling around at work, I'll eat like 3 potatoes and ask for more. If I only lifted, I might not need to eat more than half a potato and a small salad (I hate vegetables anyway).

I never limit my intake. I eat when I'm hungry or try to at least and I eat till I'm full or run out of food/money. I never waste food and I'm grateful for every ounce. I'm grateful to the rancher for raising a good animal and I'm especially grateful to the animal for dying so that its nutrients contribute to me and my productive efforts. I try to express the gratitude by investing the nutrients into my strength and into being awesome. No one has ever been deemed "too strong" or "too AWESOME", so I'll keep at it for a while.

Hope that helps a little. Again, stay tuned to your emails about a cool things we have coming up next week with our new dietitian.

I'm out!