Iron Correspondence
24 February 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I received e-mails from friends seeking advice on training and thought sharing a couple of these might be helpful in their counterintuitive suggestionsGrill is an elite lifter looking to register an 800-pound deadlift at an upcoming competition and the theme could be encapsulated as sometimes less is better
FROM: GRILLMAN
TO: HONORABLE COACH GALLAHER
SUBJECT: ACTIVE REST
AFTER FAILING TO BUDGE 595 LAST FRIDAY, (in the deadlift) I REVIEWED MY NOTES AND REALIZED I WAS SETTING MYSELF UP FOR THAT MISS AND MANY MORE TO COME UNLESS I THREW OUT THE ANCHOR AND TOOK A WEEK OFF FROM THE WEIGHTS. MY POUNDAGE WAS INCREASING BUT MY SIDE NOTES REVEALED THAT THE EXPLOSIVENESS ON MY LIFTS WAS FADING AND MY ENTHUSIASM ALONG WITH ITCENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM OVERLOAD! PULLS OFF THE FLOOR PLUS PULLS OFF THE FLOOR USING 25LB PLATES PUT ME ON THE WRONG SIDE OF RECOVERY QUICKLY. THAT COMPOUNDED WITH NO GAS IN THE TANK AND CUTTING BODY FAT AND ADDED WALKING SPELLED DISASTER FOR INCREASING THE POUNDAGE’S AND STAYING FRESH. I’LL CONTINUE MY WALKS THIS WEEK, BUT WILL ABSTAIN FROM WEIGHTS TILL NEXT WEEK. THEN PICK IT BACK UP AND MAKE SOME ADJUSTMENTS TO THE RECIPE. ONE THING I HAVE LEARNED MARTY IS THAT YOU CAN’T GET DISCOURAGED FROM A MISSED LIFT! MUST BE ABLE TO STEP BACK, ANALYZE IT, MAKE THE NECESSARY CORRECTIONS AND PRESS ON. LEARN FROM IT AND MAKE IT A POSITIVE THING AND NOT DWELL ON THE NEGATIVE OR YOU’LL TURN PINK IN THE PROCESS (NO PUN INTENDED) OH YEAH, I WEIGHED A SPINDLY 330 AS OF FRIDAY. I’LL TIP THE BEAM NEXT MONDAY.
GRILLMAN FEELING LIKE GIRL-MAN
If you eat at the finest restaurant in the world every single day you’ll soon tire of the food, despite its unquestioned elegance and sophistication. Youve lost your taste for the weights and in order to reacquire the hunger you need purposefully to abstain from the iron diet. Youll be able to make up for lost time once the hunger has been reacquired: that the bounce-back (not broke-back) will happen a snap is unquestioned: one great thing about subscribing to a three leg approach (progressive resistance training, cardio, performance eating) is sooner or later hunger fades but usually in one leg - so when we tire of a certain aspect of the fitness triad we view that as an opportunity to concentrate efforts on the other legs that we still retain enthusiasm for…I would suggest you STOP weight training totally! Double up on the walking. Do you have a walkman? I love to listen to music and I love to walk and by combining the two my walking has become a daily surrealistic odyssey that I look forward to…youve indicted that you too have acquired this cardio hunger. It must be borderline surreal when you walk down the long driveway from the adobe mud hut past the sweat lodge and watch the buffalo herd munch on those peyote buttons. To me this would seem surreal: to you this is just another day at the office. Anyway, whod have imagined that the mighty GRILL, who leaves indentations in the earth with every step, would look forward to a cardio activity! I look forward to my woodland hikes like Ivan Turgenev did his hunting forays he so brilliantly wrote about in his seminal Sportsmans Notebook. The clean air, the unrivalled mountain visuals, the smell stimulation combined with my audio controlthe whole event becomes a transcendental sensory carnival. Oh yeah and I burn off 700-1000 calories almost as an afterthought. The body fat is melting off you faster than a chunk of lard bacon tossed on a hot August sidewalk dont derail that train! Youre feeling great and you KNOW this approach is perfect for you at this juncture! So we’ve temporarily lost the taste for the iron…SO WHAT! Lets take some time off and reestablish the hunger: lock your self out of the steel house until further notice!
TO: COACH GALLAGHER
FROM: GRILLMAN
Re: ACTIVE REST
True that Marty,
I believe mental fatigue is a direct result of crashing the boards every session. But also the workload I put on the body, with (shall we say) less than adequate gas in tank and mindset sooner or later catches up to you. Two weeks ago I should have read the writing on the wall and backed off - but I believed I’d caught it in time. I thought Id shifted gears (but alas) not sufficiently to avoid the head-on. I’m contemplating staying with pulls off the block, or dropping them completely. Honestly I prefer them as I have great power off the floor. So I answered my own question. Perhaps once every 10 days for pulls, squat day 1 and light squat, pull day 5, squat day 10, light squat, pull day 15 and so on….Your thoughts? I guess I’ll find out next Friday when pulls come up again. This week I’ll also back off the rice and add more fat and veggies to the eating program; that will definitely slide me up a few more pounds. Ill fat load Sat and Sun, and have back at the lean eating come Mon.
ONE MUST CONSIDER THE JOB OF THE PORN STAR……DOES HE OR SHE TIRE OF THEIR DUTIES? I SUPPOSE SO - IS IT TRUE OF ALL: DO WE NOT VALUE WHAT IS EXPERIENCED UNTIL IT IS TAKEN AWAY FROM US?!!
FROM: MBG
TO: GRILL
I have reconsidered the zero training option after recognizing that throwing a $1,000 a day black tar heroin junkie into a jail cell will literally send them into a delirium-tremor death spiral since I dont want the physiological equivalent to happen to you perhaps a compromise to cold turkey no-training is in orderHere is an idea, radical, but worthy of serious consideration - perhaps we are rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic - how about just WEIGHT TRAINING ONCE A WEEK - WORKING UP TO ONE ALL OUT SET OF DEADLIFT! Thats it! You are entering a deadlift competition in 13-weeks so well feed the monkey enough to keep him alive. How about deadlifts and deadlifts alone for oh, say three weeksno other weight training AT ALL - no squats no benches no rows no inclines no triceps no nothing - zero nada zip - I can hear your teeth grinding as you read this NO TRAINING OTHER THAN A HALF DOZEN SETS OF DEADS! NO OTHER IRON SLINGING?! OH MY GOD ANYTHING BUT THAT!! What if once a week (or once every 10-days) you ‘allowed’ yourself to go to the gym and work up to one top set of deadlifts - then you HAD to leave! Then nothing at all for a solid week? Think of the importance this would have for you? Think of how much psychological and psychic energy you would generate in the days and hours leading up to this precious event? Like a starving man being led to a lobster buffet once a week then shuttled back to the bamboo Tiger cage you would savor every second of this infrequent experience. I know you better than your piano-tuning parents; youre getting hives just considering this MAD (mutually assured destruction) option are you man enough to pull the trigger?
YOU ARE AN EVIL, EVIL MAN!!!
OK, I’M THERE: TIME TO GALLAGHERIZE THE PROGRAM. MAY 20TH IS THE MEET SOOOOOO WE HAVE 13 WEEKS TILL THEN. 11 OR 12 WEEKS OF TRAINING DEPENDING ON WHEN YOU CHOSE TO SHUT IT DOWN.
I’LL CONTINUE THE WALKING AT 45 MIN BOUTS. ARM SWING IS MOST EFFECTIVE TO TURN UP THE INTENSITY. WHEN WILL YOU AVAILABLE TO TALK THIS WEEKEND? Presently I’m intaking daily, 1 doz xl eggs, 2lbs 80/20 ground beef, 4 Grande tortillas, 2 cups cooked rice, 2lb bag frozen green beans or broccoli. That’s 5k calories give or take. NOT MUCH GRUB….250 G’S CARBS AND I’M HUNGRY. I’M increasing the fat and protein to offset crabs taken out, the body still requires X-calories to function, moderate on the fat and high on the protein, if I pull the fat out, I’ll lean out too quick: The fat has to be there to help slow things down so foods are not passing thought my system so fast they are not being absorbed efficiently and malnourishment of the cells occurs sending the body into freak-out mode. Not that there is anything wrong with that…..just not the effect on the body I’m tuning into presently. Thanks for your time and thoughts, as always they are greatly appreciated. Perhaps it is time to swing into the valley of the sun to visit the SW COMPOUND, AKA THE WOODSHED, and break bread directly. I’d love to have the knowing eyes of Gallagher to tweak and adjust the form.
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