Methods vs. Results

Yeah…what I was saying has nothing really do do with methods. It's not that we're "discounting" methods it's that I view them as nothing more than a simple tool.

Let's come at it a different way. I always compare it to woodworking or carpentry in my head.

I'll tell you a story. My plumber was installing something and we found that the cabinets in the kitchen needed to be moved which opened a whole can of worms at first because we didn't know how difficult it would be to nudge a cabinet over because most kitchen cabinets just sit on the ground but sometimes they are bolted. Anyway turns out mine was no problem.

But in order to move the cabinet I had to remove a tiny piece of baseboard between a cabinet and a door frame and we were in a hurry. So I went and found this brand new thin wood chisel because it was the only thing I had small enough to pry off the base board. After I used the chisel I looked at it and said, damn, don't like to treat a brand new chisel like that (they aren't meant for prying!).

He said, "do you actually use them for woodworking?" I said, no, no, they are for getting into cracks and removing paint from hard to reach areas…I used them as a scraper. And I said, "I know what you're thinking, that I'm precious about the tools. Not at all I just always hate to see that new chisel edge go, lol. But I don't really care."

See my plumber is the same way. Tools are just tools. Whatever it takes to get the job done. But both of us no plenty of people that are more into their tools than they are the work they do!. These guys will be fancy computer driven equipment and then refuse to use it for certain things because they don't want to "mess it up". LOL. In reality you can do the same work with hand tools or fancy power tools and the results are the same. And there are some who are "purists" right, who refuse to use anything but "primitive" tools…yet, again, it's only the final results that matter.

Say you are joining two pieces of wood in a piece of furniture. A real join will give you much better results than just butting two pieces together with screws are something. It doesn't matter what tools you use to make the joins only the joins themselves.

But THAT is the why. When you say, I want to produce this sort of join, you have a choice of tools, but you have narrowed down those choices considerably. It ain't a hammer, or a wrench, or a saw you need, after all.

When it comes to training most people pick methods and then post facto decide what they are using them for! I'm not kidding you. This is how most coaches and trainers think and pretty much all amateur trainees. I decide what it is that needs to be accomplished and then try to pick an efficient tool. Sometimes the same tool that worked one time may not work this time or even ever again. So being results oriented means looking at what it is that needs to be done and THEN analysing and choosing the path to get their. Not the other way around.

As you say, for me a driving need is to build up work tolerance at a certain work range before moving on and that makes that next jump in absolute strength possible and safer.

Front Box Squats - Critique of Kanishk

Sir you said I shouldn't be squatting so heavy,Sir then what should I be doing for box squats.

Last time (at least the last time I'm aware of) you stayed on the box a minimum amount of time. 


Then this time you didn't really sit down at all. So, the weight you did is a reflection of that. With box squats you really are "sitting" on the box. It's a controlled sitting but it's still sitting. You said they were hard…well they should have been "harder" in terms of moving the weight which means…less weight. Consistency counts. The reason I said there is no way you should be using that much weight is because….you made it easier this time. Get it?


This happens often and it is a never-ending source of frustration to me. I give someone a new exercise variation to do and they go immedieatly into the mind set of busting out PR's on it. It's not about that. You have to look at the PURPOSE. If your "purose" is to bust out PR's then that means other "purposes", perhaps more important ones, will be sacrifised. The box squats are meant to be a learning too as well as a training tool.


1. I want to see you at least sit down to parallel


2. I want to see you pause on the box for about a two count (for discipline's sake) so count 1-Mississippi 2-Mississippi and STAY tight. Don't relax and drift back too much


Once you go through a warm up properly doing it this way the bar will let you know how much weight is appropriate. If that still turns about to be just as heavy than fine…but I doubt it because you were bouncing off a high bench and that is easier than regular front squats. Your box squats should usually be somewhat behind your regular squats but it's not a rule.

I think I was too worried about not sitting back

Yeah. Never "worry" about NOT doing something. Before you begin the session, repeat to yourself what you SHOULD do, not what you SHOULD NOT do. See yourself going trhough the motions. Run this through your mind well in advance of actually getting under the bar. And then just do it.

Deadlifting in the upper 400s

Managed to do:
465 x 1
435 x 4
475 x 1
445 x 4
475 x 1
Log: M24 W2 Deadlift Training

Plan for the following week:
465 x 1
445 x 4
475 x 1
455 x 3-4
485 x ?

Eric's take:


If this were more maximal than it is than maybe we'd want to go easy on week three, yada yada and that is how a lot of people would always do it. And it's a mistake.


This is an example of what I talked about in one of my recent posts. Compare this to the so called advanced 5x5 or any "volume loading protocol". There is wisdom in the 'build up' there is just no sense in the method which is stupid. So what you're doing is an example of working on work tolerance and performing in a fatigued state, etc. but in a much more sensible and controlled way. So it is always going to be a bit risky but it's a calculated risk. Whereas with the volume loading there is not risk benefit analysis at all.


Overreaching here is a side-effect. I don't believe in all the "planned-overreaching" shit. I plan to progress and to succeed not to "over-reach" lol.


It is perfectly fine to go for it. Just don't get "comfortable or cocky". You know that, I don't have to tell you but I think that people who would look at this and shout "too much" fail to realize that a lot of the problems that occur don't occur because of the "method" itself but because there is no "out" in the method. That is, if you don't get a pre-arranged certain thing done you have "failed". That causes people to do sloppy things because they are afraid of failing. A little stepping back from it and you can have success be a wider range of results..which is what we do. It's called "taking your time" lol.

Career Advice

Hey, I got back yesterday evening.

You know how many people I've heard say "I'm not meant for 9 to 5"? If I had a nickel for every one, etc. so on…

Very few people really "love" the daily grind. Some people are lucky enough to have their job coincide with their passion and some aren't. Some people find that when their "passion" becomes their "job" the pleasure is sucked out of it! It's possible to feel utilysed and even fullfilled by your "9 to 5" but you have been assuming that you would just fall into this perfect blend of paycheck and passion and it probably ain't gonna happen like that. You know what I always say..it all comes down to expectations. Humans are the only animals who can for sure be said to "expect" things. Therefore we can rarely "make the best of things"! We have a hard time deriving value from those things that don't meet our expectations.

Given that…your current work situation sounds crappy with a capital C. I say start looking NOW for something better. Maybe it's not finance. Maybe the pay isn't even that great but do you want good pay or less misery right now? The reason I think you should get out of this situation as soon as possible is not about training and scheduling. The hours are ridiculous but the biggest reason is because such an environment, the longer you stay in it, the more it gets under your skin. You don't want it to get inside you. It will affect your attitude when you move on. Either you will have adapted to the situation, to your detriment, or you will build up so much anger that you will carry that anger with you to each new job…expecting the worse and having the attitude that shows it.

People rarely stay with their first job out of college for long. It's a stepping stone and a learning process. Obviously it will not matter how much you put into it or how seriously you take it given such a work environment. With a situation like that if you try to "excell" you know what will happen? You will be ostracised for trying to make the slackers "look bad". There is no room for growth in a place like that. There is nothing that you can do but to try to do the tasks you are given to do without trying to overcome an untenable situation. Bide your time and find something new as soon as you can. The culture is the culture…it is out of your control you can pretty much guarantee.

Eric's comments on Deadlifts

Ok, so here are the guidelines. They will get you roundabout into the best position with a little wiggle required to hone it in to your comfort zone. I think first I will go over some mistakes that people make. Some of this I mentioned in the "hips to high" article.

One of the most important things in motor learning is your frame of reference. That is what you you as a benchmark from which your movement is relative. Obviously that may change as a movement progresses but in general, as with anything, a STATIONARY benchmark is best to start with.

One of the most frequent cues you hear in deadlifting is "get your butt higher" or "get your butt lower". To me, one of the WORST ways to cue a deadlift. Let's assume for our purposes that "hips" and "butt" is the same thing, btw, for now. When you tell someone just to move their butt up and down you are having them focus on a MOBILE benchmark and then telling them to move it around! You'll have to have someone tell you where to put your hips about a thousand times before it finally sinks in.

So we want to start with something that is not moving and maintain our setup relative to THAT.
Another big miscue, in my opinion is focusing on the feet or the floor for closed chain movements like this. What you hear is things like "drive your heels into the floor" and "try to push down on the floor". It seems like a good idea but the problem is that focusing on the feet and the floor makes your body want to move down. You are NOT pushing down the floor. You are pulling UP the bar. Although it will require a lot of pushing into the floor, lol, the action that really results in the bar being pulled up is a very powerful hip extension.

Deadlifts are a "hip dominant" movement, not a "knee dominant" movement.

To illustrate this to yourself there is a very simple but very powerful test which is similar to doing a jump. Do this right now as your reading this.

1. Stand up and get yourself into a sort of deadlifting postion. Bring your hips back and place your weight onto your heels.

2. Now VERY SLIGHTLY "push" your heels into the floor. You weight should be on your heels and your hips should be flexed so that your torso is slightly inclined. Basically you should be able to jump forward from this position. So push your heels into the ground just enough so that you feel your glutes and hamstrings engage. You may actually feel as if you can "tense" these muscles a whole lot without actually extending your knees or hips at all.

3. NOW, do something different. Get into the same position as step two. Weight on the heels. But DON'T push your heels into the floor. Instead concentrate on driving your hips and butt forward very slightly and easily. In other words just try to slightly extend (straighten) your hips.

4. If you do this right you should notice a very marvelous thing. In step two, you will probably be able to generate a lot of muscular tension in your legs and really feel as if you are pushing that floor but without actually generating any movement. Yet, in step three you should find it pretty much impossible to try to extend the hips and not end up standing straight up! If your degree of effort is pretty much the same for both things that should tell you something about the relative efficiency of both movements!

The reality is..both efforts SHOULD result in the same thing. But the first method is able to generate a whole lot of muscle tension with no movement whereas the second method results in powerful and fluid movement without a lot of static muscle tension.

With that being said, there MAY be something to say for first driving the heels and then performing a violent hip extension…which is what most people do. Because you generate that tension in the extensors and then your "let it rip". I've never really found it to be more efficient, personally. Albeit with a heavy dead lift you generate a lot of muscular tension, lol, so what I mean is that I don't find it more efficient to use "high tension techniques". If I could guess as to why this is so I'd say that generating the excessive and unneeded tension limits efficient joint movement. In that vane you may notice that step two, if you allow movement, causes a more herky jerky movement, whereas step three, as I said before, causes a fluid movement, and what's more you can hardly avoid this movement occuring with only the slightest application of effort.

Ok, so the other mistake that people make is to take the word "pulling" to literally. This is another reason why focusing on hip drive is so important. What people do is they simply attempt to "pull" the bar off the floor with their shoulders. So it's sort of like they are dong the movement from the top down. Which results in the extreme cases in the "scared cat deadlift" that we see SO often. That's not the only thing that results in it but it's one action that can lead to it.
That's at least a few of the mistakes…

1. Stand with your shins about an inch from the bar with about a hip width stance or slightly wider depending on what works best for you.

2. Look down at the barbell and imagine that there is a vertical line coming up through it so that the line of the barbell is part of an imaginary plane. The barbell and this imaginary line is your reference point or benchmark. You will use this to orient your body to. Remember this if for visualization purposes only.

3. After you grab the bar you will bring your shoulders in front of the bar so that the imaginary line intersects you scapula. In other words, the bar is in line with your scapula. Keeping your shoulders forward of the bar in this postion bring your chest up and shoulders back and locked. Scapula retracted.

4. Hips/Butt: Now that your feet are in the right place and your shoulders are in the right place the trick is to get your hips as close to this imaginary LINE as possible while maintaining your shoulder position. You are NOT bring your hips down toward the bar..you are bringing them forward toward the line coming up through the bar. WITHOUT moving your shoulders back.

All the while the chest must stay OUT and the shoulders back. The lower back must remain in it's tightly set natural arch.

Really, once you hit step three and you are maintaining a good deadlifting position with your lumbar set..you are pretty much there. Step 4 is a very subtle adjustment. If you move your hips down..the shoulders drift behind the bar. If you move your hips too far up the shoulder sink. So "just right" is in between. Correct, as has been said before, means your butt is below your shoulders but above your knees . That may seem really smart aleck but since you see people try to deadlift with their butt below their knees in the "deadlift as squat" position OR with their butt pretty much level with their shoulders…it needs to be said, apparently.