The Training Week That Was - 12/30 - 1/5

The Caveman Cafeteria is a Denver food truck serving very delicious and high quality foods. They're doing a Kickstarter campaign right now to open a food cart on 16th Street. A small disclaimer: it's not your usual $8 hot dog or $9 grilled cheese. The January menu consists of wagyu beef sliders, bistro steaks and deep-fried brussel sprouts. LEGIT.

12/30-12/31 - Off. Did some epsom salts and some time sitting in a squat, but nothing special.

1/1
Abs x 100
SSB Squat barx5x2 70x5 90x4 110x5x2 120x5x3 125x5 130x5
GH Raise 5x10 + Neck Machine 5x12+12+12
Abs x150 and some kettlebell swings

Since I only have one good arm to use, it seems like an excellent time to get back into KB work. Glenn Pendlay from MuscleDriver actually reminded me of this when he posted some vids of himself doing the RKC test (100 snatches in five minutes w/ 24kg 'bell). They're boring vids (sorry man, but it's five minutes of a guy snatching a kettlebell), but what does it say about me that I watched them? Anyways, I'll start throwing these in at the end of workouts to get some variety going on as well as keep the hips snappy. Five minutes of work a couple days a week isn't gonna break me.

1/2
Foam roller work

1/3 - Carb Nite
Measurements

Neck: 16.5"

Chest: (at the nipple line): 40 1/2"

Waist: (around the belly button): 35 1/4"

Hips: (at the widest part): 42"

Thigh: (at the largest part): 26"

Bicep: (unflexed, at the widest part): 15"
Weight: 211.6

Longer Warmup
Front Squat - barx5x2 60x5x2 80x5 100x4 110x4 120x5x6
GH Raise - BW x6 10kgx6x2 15kgx6x2
Reverse Hypers - 3x6 heavy
Traction
- I forgot about my KB work, so I did five minutes of snatches with a 20kg kettlebell. No idea on the reps; I think around 7-10 sets of 8? Boy do they suck when you can't change hands.

Contents of my Carb Nite: Two scoops of Muscle Feast Anabolic Recover (my favorite post-workout shake), some brownies, a quarter of a cherry cheesecake, half a gallon of raw milk, slice of berry pie, bit of chicken breast along with a couple shakes with leucine. Much heavier on fat and sweets than I prefer but I got a late start at the gym and had a short window to get my feed on, so I went with what I had in my freezer.

1/4 - Epsom Salt

1/5
Front Squat with Straps - barx5x2 60x5x2 (could NOT get loose) 90x4 110x3 130x3 142x3 147x3 152x2 (I think the last three are all PRs)
GH Raise bwx5x2 10kgx5x2 15kgx5x2 20kgx5 20kgx4 15kgx7
Heavy Rev Hypers/Standing Abs/GH Situps - bunch of each
Traction

My partners have been working with Josh Bryant and they tested their squats and deadlifts. Reggie squatted 525 and pulled 605, Beau squatted 525 and skipped the DL, Justin squatted 455, pulled 585 and lost 605 just above his knees. Your brother from another mother did the filming and took some pics. Reggie's max squats and pulls are on his YouTube channel here. Justin's are also listed here. Great work by those guys and super happy for them.  

The Training Week That Was 9/23-9/29 and Carb Backloading v2.0

Training 9/23 - 9/29

-Nothing

-Absolutely nothing

-Zero

My back has been giving me fits since Estes Park. I've been trying to train though it with zero success. With that in mind, I've done something that I haven't done in probably a year: I did nothing. No training. No sled dragging or Prowler. No reverse hyper. No yoga. No bar work. No tempo work. Nothing. I saw the chiro twice this week and my back hasn't felt this good in ages. Proof will be in the pudding as I'm restarting training for my next meet tomorrow. 

On to vastly more interesting topics: Carb Backloading. I've tried a number of different diets with my training, from Carb Cycling to a modified version of the Warrior Diet to Intermittent Fasting. I have found my most success from Carb Backloading and its sister plan, Carb Nite. I used Carb Nite for ten weeks right after my last meet and moved from 214-202 and lopped an inch and a half off of my waist, which has stayed off. I must say that I would HIGHLY recommend people try a wide variety of nutrition programming (including ALL of the previous programs) and see what works for you.  

So the basics of carb backloading: skip breakfast, stay ultra low-carb and stick to protein/fats/veggies during the day, train hard and then pound high glycemic carbs til bedtime. That's the 50,000 ft view; the actual mechanics are much more detailed than I can (or should) go into in a blog post. I highly recommend you pick up the book and read it for yourself. There are literally about fifty pages of references for the protocols to scratch your nerd itch, and these protocols are backed by the science. 

I won't go into big picture details, as none of these ideas are mine and I want to protect Kiefer's intellectual property. I will, however, give you some details on what has been optimal for me specifically. This is my second go round and I learned quite a bit from my first run of CBL. 

1. Gluten free is the way to go: I've never had any noticeable issues with gluten in my life. Having said that, I experimented with going gluten free for a week of backloads and the results were fantastic. No bloating, no feelings of impending doom, no issues with sleep and no morning-after carb hangover. I stick to white rice for my first post-workout meal, typically a bowl from Tokyo Joe's, a stir-fry at home and/or a yam and sweet potato. I get a little dirtier for my second meal, which is usually a bowl (or three) of Cocoa Krispies (with raw milk), some Rice Krispie treats or a Fro-Yo. I'm also terribly partial to Udi's gluten free muffins. The cinnamon and chocolate are the shiznit. 

 

2. Paleo is the way to go: I'm no expert on the Paleo diet, but it's very tough to make an argument against the idea of eating whole foods from smart sources. Carb-Backloading, within the Paleo realm, is still incredibly easy. Sweet potatoes, white potatoes, bananas, mangoes and cherries all make excellent high-glycemic backloading foods. Personally, I've noticed that I don't get as good results when my backloads are high in fruit, so I stick to the potatoes with a mango or banana or the side rather than the other way around. Honey and agave aren't the best ideas either, as they're actually quite low on the glycemic response scale. 

3. Find your upper and lower ranges: The first week I pushed the backloads very hard to see my upper limits and the second week I pushed them low to see my body's response. For me personally, staying at the lower end and cleaner works best as far as refueling and feeling good. It's probably a function of my style of training (Olympic weightlifting) that I stay at the low end as it isn't terribly glycogen depleting. Carb backloading isn't a one-size fits all protocol; you need to dial up the particulars for your personal situation. 

4. Watch out for too much fat in the morning: My "breakfast" is typically coffee with a half scoop of whey isolate and some combination of coconut oil and heavy cream. When I go overboard on the fats in the morning...the phrase "gastrointestinal distress" some to mind. If/when you go too far, you'll know. 

I like to think of the whole backload process as an extended post-workout shake. Pretty much the entire fitness industry agrees that a post-workout shake is a good idea in most cases. The ideal shake is typically high-glycemic carbohydrate and a fast acting whey protein, rich in leucine. So imagine the backload process as multiple meals within the post-workout window rather than a single meal. 

So that's that. Visit Dangerously Hardcore. Read the book. Listen to the Biojacked Radio podcasts, either on Soundcloud or through the Dangerously Hardcore website. Be open minded. Ask questions. I've implemented both diets with success. Be moar healthy and moar awesome. 

So I Baked: Big Whoop, Wanna Fight About It?

This past weekend I did something I hadn't done in ages: I baked. After almost a year living in my current utilitarian hovel, I finally managed to use the oven. And since I had a ginormous zucchini from a friend's garden, I went looking for zucchini bread recipes. Preferably with chocolate.

What I found was a recipe for MOIST Chocolate Zucchini Bread from Denver, Colorado's own Juli Bauer of PaleOMG and Crossfit Broadway fame. I did make a couple minor tweaks to her recipe (sorry Jules):

-I went with almond butter instead of sunbutter (1:1 exchange), purely because I already had an unopened jar of Justin's Nut Butter. A well-prepared baker would've bought Justin's chocolate almond butter. Next time. 

-I also dropped two scoops of Muscle Feast Whey Isolate into the batter. Anything to squeeze in a little extra protein whenever possible. And yes, I realize the high temps from baking probably denatured the protein a bit.   

SIDE NOTE: (People always seem to mention protein denaturing when you cook with protein powders like it's the end of the world, but never when you cook with meat or eggs. The main point of cooking is to denature and break down foods (not just the Precious protein powders), which in turn makes them easier to digest and more bioavailable. Do some Googling on the Tron and you'll see that cooking our meats and plants has had a tremendous impact on our evolutionary path.)

And that's it. Follow Juli's excellent recipe and you should end up with a couple loaves of an awesome cake/bread-type thing that stays really MOIST. Mine didn't rise a whole lot (I probably shorted the baking powder), so keep that in mind. I took both loaves into the office on Monday morning and they were terminated with extreme prejudice by 10am by the entire trading desk. 

(I didn't frame my pics quite as awesome as she does, but you get the idea)

(Mini-Band from Elitefts.com; supersetting band pull-aparts and grating zucchini is great rotator cuff prehab)