Andersonian heavy workload staggered interval training…Redux!
16 November 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I took off yesterday altogether. No nothing: no weights, no cardio, no nothing. Why? My body needed it. How did I know? Telltale signs: I woke up dog tired though I had gone to sleep early the previous night and slept well. My chest region was sore-to-the-touch…big time! I was shattered. I needed to eat – a lot – sleep – a lot – and do nothing more strenuous than read Tolstoy or Turgenev next to the blazing fire – perhaps while sipping a super fine 40-year old Irish Whiskey listening to Van Morison or John Lee Hooker…My current condition could be traced back to the previous day’s experimental extended workout. My crazy routine had me doing weight training in between yard work. Yep, over a seven hour period, in between mowing, pruning, sawing, shoving grass clippings into garbage bags, I would hit a set of bench presses. Every 15-minutes (or thereabouts) I’d stop what I was doing, walk back to the garage and lift a pre-loaded weight in the flat bench press. This went on for hours. It sounds crazy on account of, well, honestly – it is crazy! But it’s crazy with pedigreed precedent. The procedure is simple: warm thoroughly in a particular exercise until you hit the top poundage of the daily menu. In my case I wanted to work up to an explosive set of ten reps with say 70% of max. The poundage selected was one I would be capable of handling rolling out of bed with no warm-up for 10-reps. I could handle the poundage for 15-20 reps so I cranked back only did 10-reps. Then I kept repeating this for hours.
On this particular fall day in Civil War Pennsylvania countryside, I went out back of the Mountain Compound and started mowing the grass at 10 am on a cloudless, 60-degree fall day. Every 15-20 minutes I’d just stop what I was doing and head to the garage. I’d flop down on the bench a do a set of 10. Surprisingly my strength stayed high for a prolonged period. I mowed, I raked. I bagged grass clippings, I lifted. I was feeling good. My extended workout was easy in the sense that I was fully recovered between each and every lifting effort and never once did I struggle to complete a set. No one set kicked my glutes but apparently, judging from my next day decimation, the cumulative effect was devastating. I could barely button my shirt. During the enduro my sustained strength was surprisingly good. I was getting chores done right and left, all were on my wife’s “must do today” list. My yard work was actually better quality than usual, not rushed and frantic. Well hell, I said, I feel so good that let’s keep this groove thang going! So I rolled into weed-whacking, then pruning and trimming the bushes that lined the left side of the yard. I listened to my 1000-song IPOD. On and on. I started out using a super-wide grip and a purposefully slow rep speed: I hit 10-reps or better every successive set. More yard work. I felt so good I thought about rolling right into triceps – but a little leprechaun voice in my head said, “Even though you feel great, even though you feel exhilarated, even though it doesn’t seem like you’re doing a lot – let’s not do anymore until we see how this impacts you tomorrow.” That inner voice is smart as hell and I should always listen to it.
The next day my entire chest region felt as if steroid monster baseball players had beaten my chest muscles with 36-ounce Louisville sluggers. I was a mess. No weights today. I needed beef stew comfort food. No phone calls. Modified Marvin’s were on the lifting schedule but there was no way that was going to happen. 10-pound dumbbells would feel like 100s. No yard work either. A rake would too heavy. I will use this tactic again - but I will be respectful and keep in mind the next-day cumulative effect. This training approach was bought to my attention by Purposefully Primitive Uber-God Paul Anderson. Paul was the greatest strength athlete in modern recorded history and his exploits are legendary and enumerable. I worshipped the guy unreservedly. Paul was The MAN. One quick Andersonian tale: He owned a farm in Vidalia, Georgia and on it he constructed two putting greens spaced 300-yards apart. Big Paul weighed 360-pounds yet was athletic and graceful and spry enough to be able to leap up onto a 40-inch table. He could squat 1200-pounds and was the greatest squatter and overhead presser of all time. Back on the farm, Paul would tee up a golf ball and blast it towards the far putting green. He’d power walk to the ball, chip shot to the green, putt in and walk to a barbell set up on an outdoor lifting platform adjacent to the green. It was a crude homemade rack that held a barbell loaded to 400-pounds. Paul without fanfare or warm-up would take the barbell out of the rack, step back, set up and knock out a set of 5-6 overhead presses. After pressing 400 he’d re-rack the bar, collect himself, tee up his ball and drive it back to the other green. He’d power walk 300-yards, chip up, putt in and walk to a squat rack he’d set up adjacent to green #2. On a second platform a barbell was loaded to 800-pounds. He’d full squat the 800 for 6-8 reps without fanfare or warm-up before teeing up once again to head back to green #1.
Back and forth he’d go…drive the ball, walk, chip, putt, press 400 for reps, drive the ball, walk, chip, putt, squat 800 for reps, turnaround, drive, walk, chip, putt, lift…he’d go all afternoon and found this extremely relaxing and restorative. After he’d had enough, he’d walk back to the farmhouse where Glenda would have a huge pot of homemade chicken and biscuits or a platter of fried fish all ready. Big Andy would eat his fill, sip some lemonade and take a nap on the front porch in his oversize rocking chair. Some egghead sports scientist later proclaimed this, “Andersonian heavy workload staggered interval training.” Paul and Glenda would have had a thigh-slapping belly laugh over that one: his sonic boom laugh would be heard for a country mile. So I have taken it upon myself to keep this most elemental of Purposefully Primitive training regimens alive! Say it loud: Andersonian-heavy-workload-staggered-interval-trainers and proud! I am making a pact with myself to engage in this crazed approach one day per month. I got more outside work done in those seven manic hours than I managed in six previous months. I have to crank the volume back a tad. Maybe limit this to three hours. And get eat all the time…and take a long nap afterwards. Does this have any relevance to you or your training? Probably not – but it is illustrative of the incredible variety of modes and methods available to those with open minds and an adventurous spirit. Sameness begets sameness. Let’s fight against the tendency to stay with “the known” as Krishnamurti would call it, we find warm and friendly comfortable training methods and stay with them way too long…as the 3rd Patriarch said, “If you meet the Buddha in the road – Kill Him!” Meaning, if you love the training mode you’re using but it no longer delivers results – put it back on the shelf and rotate in something radical and different.
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