C.A. Lang's Blog, page 3

Volume Training – the final push

I’m just over four weeks into the volume training deal. Everything I heard about it was exciting–that this was (what sounded like at the time) an easy way to get hyoooge.

In my case, not so much. I know guys who can just stick to the 10 rep range for a bit, eat a bunch of carbs, and explode. But the modest gains I have scrounged so far haven’t come easily.

Like I mentioned before, eating enough is a struggle. And it’s frustrating even trying to communicate this fact to others, because they hear what I’m doing and think it’s fun and pleasurable and gives you free reign to eat everything you want. They get offended, even. They think I’m full of hubris and trying to make them feel bad.

I’m not!

There’s a reason why I’ve read that you keep your goals to yourself, I guess. Literally the only people who get it are simply other people who do the same thing. Everyone else just gets defensive for some reason. And I mean everyone.

Anyway, almost near the end of this 6-week cycle, I’m starting to feel a little bit burned out. I’m not sore or anything. My joints and tendons are handling high volume very well. But I’m noticing sleep disruption and some other signs of stressed adrenals. Also, I picked up a weird cold-ish thing that almost lasted 2 weeks, which never happens to me. Don’t get me wrong . . . I won’t say anythng about “overtraining,” because I like CT Fletcher’s philosophy that there ain’t no motherfuckin’ such thing as over-fuckin-training. But I’ll be glad to switch to some big lifts and high intensity training soon.

I had an initial goal that now I know is ridiculously unrealistic for me unless I have the luxury of making it a fulltime job. Putting on 20lbs of lean muscle is TOUGH. At the end of this, I’ll be lucky to come away with 10. I can definitely see how guys get lured into steroids now. But a little reading about what certain frames are able to support without them does make you feel better. It would be pretty ridiculous for someone with my wrist size and height to be as big as I’d originally planned.

It’s not much, but I’m happy with it. This is something that takes a lot of time and failure, and as long as I’ve become stronger, it’ll have been a success.

Crowd-Funding Idiocy: The Meal Replacement Kid

A few months ago, I had one of those daytime doctor shows on while getting ready for work. They gave airtime to this awkward young man who claimed to make food obsolete because he’d read a list of RDAs and mixed other products together to create a liquid diet that he felt was superior to real food.

Now, I have lived/breathed/worked in various aspects of the health and fitness world, and a big chunk of that has been within the realm of supplements. So naturally this thing grabs my interest.

At the time it seemed ridiculous. But now people are taking this (software) “engineer” seriously. Apparently he has backing from a horde of randos who apparently know nothing. Or, if they do, they like throwing away money.

Here’s a more recent article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/14/rob-rhinehart-has-a-crazy-plan-to-let-you-go-without-food-forever-it-just-might-work/

Don’t get me wrong. It still seems absolutely obnoxious that this tired-as-fuck idea of liquid meal replacements is getting so much attention. Why? Because the only reason it’s getting attention is exactly because this guy has no idea what he’s doing. That’s all I can come up with. Seriously, the technical aspects of this are boring and easily dealt with by actual professionals. Here is just one good example of what people actually in the business of health and wellness would say about this if they had any credibility. No, the interesting point here is this: what is this dude actually selling?

The answer is that he’s selling some bullshit about being fed up (PUN ENTIRELY INTENDED) with real food (Gasp! Something every living thing on Earth needs to live! What a shit disturber!) and is not letting the fact that he knows nothing get in his way. No, since he’s a (software) “engineer,” he must be smart enough to figure out what Bayer, GSK, Pfizer, and thousands of alternative health supplement companies apparently could not despite expertise and funding. The alarming thing here isn’t the idea that people will listen to this guy in any long-lasting capacity. The alarming thing is that it shows how substance has truly taken a back seat to hysteria, and how empowering groupthink (via crowdsourcing and other postmodern bad ideas) bypasses gatekeepers who actually know what they’re talking about, or have the acumen to find out what they don’t know in order to make a good decision about where to invest.

One reason why the concept of mass hysteria being given a vehicle with which to make its horrible visions reality has captured me so much is this: I have been looking into ways to release my serial Archon independently. Part of this is simply because I won’t have a lot of time to commit to working with a publisher, since I’m going to school to be an engineer. Erm. Civil engineer, not software. Anyway, one possibility was this crowd-funding stuff. I looked at other authors who do this–some were published by big houses and had slipped in recent years despite having decent readership. Their solution was to have fans pre-pay for the next installment.

I respect any author’s decision to do that. But for myself, I found that it didn’t sit right. I just could not ask a crowd of people to pony up an arbitrary amount before I wrote another part of my serial. I write these stories for myself. To me that seems like holding my own stories for ransom. It gives me the creeps when I envision my own stories put in that position.

Back to The Meal Replacement Kid. Part of his schtick is self-experimentation. That’s a good gimmick in the supplement industry and is frequently invoked. It goes back to Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy. To an uneducated person, the fact that he researched homeopathy on himself sounds impressive and believable. But that’s actually . . . well, it just ain’t right.

Nutrition is such an irritating, muddy subject. Aside from the fact that a liquid-only diet is meant for invalids who lack the will/physical strength to process plants and animals themselves, making assumptions about humanity by experimenting on yourself doesn’t work. Going by the kid’s own blog, his experience went beyond what a bunch of fucking books told him about nutrition. An engineer would know how to factor in the real world to his problem-solving. Well, maybe a software engineer might think differently. I think it’s cool that Rob Rhinehart has explored his own health the way he has, and found something he feels works for him.  I don’t think the guy is bad or anything–my problem is with groupthink and the false wisdom of crowds, and how we are giving the mob too much credibility.

Given all the problems associated with nutrition, the pharmaceutical and alternative health industries both have used reason to navigate this matter: there is no need, never-mind no feasible way, for a healthy person to survive “forever” on food that is not actually food. Supplements exist for certain circumstances to reinforce nutrition, but not as the sole source of sustenance. If it were a good idea, the thousands of other people who have already thought of this would have already become billionaires.

But that was before the age of the second-hander, as Ayn Rand might call this. What is being sold here is not innovation at all. It’s just the first time circumstance had brought the second-hander into the right light, the right postmodern spin on an unimaginative solution to a problem that doesn’t even exist. The narrative is what’s for sale–that’s what the groupthink internet bullshit machine is buying. Contrary to what he thinks, products like this do exist on the market. You’ve just never heard of them because nobody really wants them outside certain niches.

As for crowd-sourced artistic endeavours like films and books? I don’t know. I still don’t like it. It just seems . . . off. There’s a boundary in the creative process that doesn’t seem to exist when I envision my work being prepaid by fans, not by pros.

Archon: Part I (excerpt)

 

 

Coming soon: Archon – Part 1.

 

A dieselpunk story arc that will be available in serial form. It’s based in the same world as Blightcross. When I say it’s the bastard child of Memphis Belle and heroic fantasy, I’m not joking. Bam.

 

The light hissed past his starboard wing. Jaris shook the cobwebs from his head and jammed open the throttle, pulled the stick. A crash behind him shook the cabin, and he glanced in the mirror. Plumes of smoke. A streak of fire. Shards of burning metal cascading down, trailing black.

The engine roared, and the strange impression that had frozen him turned to a stupid afterthought. How could he have been so distracted?

He spoke into the comm. “Shit. I must have missed it. They said there wasn’t anything to worry about. Just a group of bandits causing trouble.”

“Why didn’t you fire when you had the chance?” Auren’s voice wavered. Anger or fear–hard to tell.

“I . . .” Jaris banked and peered down at the convoy. Out of range for now, though it was anyone’s guess what the range of an Ehzeri terror-mage actually was. Nobody had really fought them from the air. Until now.

“You what?”

He formed on Auren’s wing. “I just . . . just choked.”

A point of light burned the margins of his vision. A second later, an explosion of oil and metal splattered Jaris’ windscreen. A second more, and Auren’s ship careened towards the desert, burning oil tracing its fall.

#

 

Watch for it.

Blightcross Trailer

 

Indeed.

 

Watch this:

 

Clockwork Angels tour – Vancouver

 

I saw the best band in the entire world last Friday. Finally, Rush had made it to Vancouver and I was able to go.

This was the first time I’d seen them live. It’s probably even the first time I’ve ever been in a room where I didn’t have to have that awkward conversation with the non-Rush worshipping world. That conversation either goes two ways: it basically doesn’t happen because they don’t even know who they are, or they know the band, but get into the cringe-worthy half-assed acknowledgment that they’re great but just not something the person can get into. “I mean . . . I just . . . I mean I like Tom Sawyer but . . . man like . . .” and it just goes on and on and it’s like nails on a chalkboard.

Not so at a show. It was pretty cool to see a bunch of Rush fans in the same place.

The setlist worried me a little at the beginning, but they eventually got to the main reason I’d wanted to go: songs from Clockwork Angels. It’s not that I didn’t want to hear old stuff, but they seem like one of those bands whose new stuff might be a hard sell to a lot of people. I fucking hate that “I only like the old stuff” bullshit. It’s hard to say “better” but for lack of a better term, Clockwork Angels is better than anything they’ve done previously. Luckily they played all but two songs from the album.

One interesting part was the string section they brought on tour. Not only was this necessary for the new album, but it made a couple of the old songs pop as well. The main one that sticks out is Dreamline.

But back to the new album–hearing these live was amazing. Not only did they sound kickass but the visuals playing along on the screens brought both the novel and the songs into a whole new dimension. I think if any of the people around me seemed uninterested in this part of the show–and for some bizarre reason a few were–they must not have cared about the novel. They also threw in some surprising pyro–not special at a rock concert by any means but I never expected any from Rush.

Throughout the entire novel, I couldn’t wait for an illustration of the album’s namesake, but they didn’t include one. I had the same anticipation during the song, thinking that they’d have to work them into the visuals somehow.

It’s strange how focused I am on visuals with this, given that all I figured I’d be interested in was Alex Lifeson’s guitars. Yet they had a gigantic impact on how awesome that part of the show was.

And yes, I loved hearing Tom Sawyer and 2112 and all that. But to me that kind of nostalgia couldn’t compare to a steampunk concept album with stunning visuals being played by the best band in the universe.

 

GVT update and supplement BS.

 

It’s been around 2 weeks of volume training, and it’s been a hell of a lot different to what I’ve been doing for the past 2 years.

In the first week, I actually dropped a kg or so, which made me a bit upset. The issue of eating enough didn’t quite hit me until seeing that disappointment for myself. Being a (former, I guess . . .) long distance runner, I thought I was used to how massive calorie deficit feels. But the hunger involved in high-volume weight training is entirely different. How much of this is psychological? I’m not sure. See, when I was only concerned with being fast, of course I didn’t really care about losing weight. Eat a bunch of pasta after 20k and forget about it. Now, there have been a few times when I’ve eaten until my stomach feels full while still feeling like I hadn’t had enough yet. Now when I feel hunger, an alarm goes off and I worry about being catabolic.

The solution for me was to count calories. It’s annoying but not that hard . . . I don’t even use a fancy telephone app or something, just the calculator on my shitty old kind-of-smart phone. And when you do that, based on a broad guideline of 20 x bodyweight, you realize that if you thought you ate a lot before, you were way off. This might help me in day job land, when often I get parents trying to help their scrawny kids gain weight. They’ll tell me how much their kid eats–like they will eat a whole pizza or something. But obviously they aren’t doing that consistently. Anyone can gorge intermittently and make it look like they eat a lot, but when you keep track, numbers tell a different story.

As for the actual training, I’ve expanded on it a bit. I didn’t feel that 4 exercises of 10×10 was enough. I mean it’s definitely hard, but I need more to feel like I’ve accomplished anything. With this kind of program, it seems like overtraining really is the way to go–if the standard program doesn’t feel like enough, push past it. There’s no way anyone is going to get anything out of this range unless they push themselves way past their comfort zone. I meant that’s technically what any program should do, but I feel like with this one, people could be lulled into thinking that the fact that they’re doing 100 reps means they’ll make gains even if those reps didn’t make them want to hurl. So I head into the gym with a bare minimum of doing the outlined GVT exercises, but know that I’ll probably add on a few more.

Any gains? Some modest upper arm growth. I measured the other day and will hopefully be able to report a number in the coming weeks. Since I’d not bothered focusing on the biceps femoris before, that’s catching up pretty fast now that I have a 10×10 leg curl in there.

Again, lowering the weight is hard on the ego. But with squats especially, I find doing fast sets of 10 with hardly any rest beats the living shit out of me. In that case it’s especially good and difficult because it’s easier to do them right–as in right to the floor. And to me it’s more valuable to do ass to floor for 10 reps than it is to do a shallow dipshit squat with 400lbs. I saw a kid doing this the other day–he weighed less than me, piled shit on the bar as if he were a beast, then proceeded to waste everyone’s time by making them spot him as he barely went down with it. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not seeing the point.

It’s tougher to schedule 2-2.5 hours at the gym now, but I definitely feel like this program is kicking my ass into some gains, especially when you modify the program and avoid walking into the gym with expectations. If you can do more, you should. The only hitch is eating enough. I read a good quote the other day. “There is no overtraining, only undereating.”

Enough of that. I notice that one of the searches that brings people here is to do with what I wrote about flax oil and aromatase. I think I might be giving the wrong impression about it, so if any of those bros end up reading this, pay attention.

Herbs and dietary supplements don’t affect the body that much. When we talk about a specific effect, its usefulness is mostly to gently and modestly help the body to be normal again, where the situation that made it not normal was within the normal range of what happens to a normal human. Very few supplements have been shown to raise blood levels of this or that hormone very much. In the case of flax oil, I doubt it has any significant benefit to block aromatase. For any hope of affecting hormone levels, you’d probably need the actual powdered seeds. Even then, there’s no way that lignans are going to stop your gyno if you’re using steroids. Things like quercetin and lignans and other natural supplements (NOT chrysin–this one is such bullshit that it’s laughable. It’s been shown to actually increase fat due to the way it can slow the thyroid. Ditch chrysin supplements) help . .  . but only a little bit. Bodybuilding and steroids create a situation beyond the scope of any natural supplement. Treating your side effects with natural supplements is like trying to clean an oil spill with a post-it note. I’m not judging steroids, but I am judging sketchy supplement companies that promise things that just can’t be true.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a little tribulus or fenugreek in the hope that it might give you a tiny, ever-so-slight boost in testosterone. Those herbs do a lot of things and some of them are good for preventing other health problems. But just know that with any legitimate scientific experiment, hardly any supplement has been shown to affect hormone levels significantly.

Always fall back on common sense. Think to yourself how big of a deal it would be if an unregulated, unpatentable herbal extract or synthesized chemical could affect hormone levels in a meaningful way. People would no longer need injections. Doctors would prescribe them. Every guy out there would pay the 20 dollars for them and become a raging douche, and we’d have a national emergency. No–do not get into a pharmaceutical conspiracy argument. People actually need IGF-1 to correct their endocrine disorders and go for injections. I don’t see any of them dumping their injections for velvet antler any time soon, and it’s not due to any secret meetings between medical associations and sales reps.

 

 

 

 

 

Chemtrail Hoax.

It’s a bit redundant to put the word “hoax” after a word that by its very definition IS a hoax, but I thought I’d share something extra dumb that happened in my town this week. Actually these people are so desperate and unfortunate that they did this in both of my towns–my current one and my more-or-less hometown of Penticton.

Chemtrail Letter Hoax

So they stole municipal letterhead and tried to make it look as if the local government was really concerned about chemtrails and urged everyone to report them, as if the sky weren’t right fucking there for everyone to see. The freaks then littered parking lots with these letters.

It’s interesting because the woo-crowd often resorts to blatant fabrication to convince people that they’re right about their absurd conspiracies. Now I know a lot of people who get into conspiracy stuff and some of them I like very much. Maybe there are conspiracies somewhere and maybe there aren’t–I don’t really care because I’m able to do everything I want and do not have issues with sense of agency at my age–but if there were, they wouldn’t be half as fucking dumb as the chemtrail/genetic engineering/HAARP ones. They’d be a lot more disturbing and a lot less cartoony. And you wouldn’t know about them.

Chemtrails seem to be a particularly stubborn topic. There have been tons of asinine fake or dishonest photos on facebook, like the one that showed a test aircraft loaded with water tanks and computers. Maybe you’ve seen it–I think a lot of people tried to pull that “THIS IMAGE WAS BANNED BY FACEBOOK! SHARE WHILE YOU CAN!” bullshit with it. One then wonders why if Facebook is working for THEM and deleting photos that expose conspiracies anyone would continue to use it to post their millions of conspiracy photos every day that nobody cares about . . . Anyway, all the photo really showed was a test aircraft loaded with tanks of water that are used to simulate different loads, along with sensors to provide data for how the plane is behaving in the air under such loads.

Chemnuts will still argue this though . When I ask them what exactly they would use to test an aircraft’s performance under load, which is extremely important in making sure it’s a good design, they seem to miss the point or simply not understand the question at all. What would you use? Bins of potatoes? Actual people? Or just not test it at all! Why on earth would you do such a test! I think that’s what they end up thinking. They just don’t understand how stuff really works and have no genuine curiosity about these things.

But that photo isn’t technically a fabrication so much as just poverty of scientific literacy. They did fake a photo of an alleged “protest” by airline pilots by photoshopping their signs, turning it from a banal work-related issue like pay and hours into a valiant mass whistleblowing drama about chemtrails. One that we all somehow missed unless we were watching sketchy Facebook output.

So do the people who fake these things actually believe the conspiracy and just think that lying is justified to expose what they think is an imminent threat? Or are they just tricksters who are laughing at all the fuckwits who believe their jokes, as well as the uptight fuckers like me who feel the need to get pissed off about them?

Personally, I hope these guys are just having a good time watching people act stupid. I’d high-five them, even though it’s wasting my own time as I write this post. But somehow I kind of doubt that the people behind these lies are that cool.

How Do We Do It? Volume.

 

It’s been just a bit over a week since I switched my program for the first time in a while. I had hit a plateau . . . well, more like a mezzanine . . . and the 5×5 wasn’t getting me any bigger or stronger. I don’t think that it matters which program you switch to so much as the fact that you’re switching it in the first place, but I chose “German Volume Training” for the next six weeks. Now, anyone can read about this bullshit on bodybuilding.com, but I’m just going to write what’s actually happening to me when I do it.

I was pretty skeptical of it because of the low weight involved. Other tough guys always told me never to lower weight, but these were just regular kind-of-strong-but-not-bodybuilder types. Part of me still feels wrong lifting what a baby bird or Bachelorette contestant might lift, but I’m actually already seeing results.

In reality, increasing volume can be a great way to put on size. Obviously it works differently for everyone, but for me at least, I’m pretty confident that after six weeks of this I will have basically exploded, and this echoes what guys like Elliott Hulse have said about it. I’m a scrawny person in general, and did a lot of endurance training. Keep in mind that in the running world, they actually say if you look good, you’re too fat to run.

Fuck that.

So it’s hard for me to put on mass. A lot of people seem to have this idea that scrawny people are just “naturally” that way and that all big and strong guys were born that way and didn’t work hard.

This is bullshit. Don’t listen to it. Ever. It goes in reverse too–some people tell other people that they “aren’t built for running.” Again, unless you’ve trained hard and are good at it, shut the fuck up.

Yes my frame is smaller in some places. I have small wrists and very long forearms. Sometimes it makes lifting a bit harder. But this doesn’t have anything to do with being able to put on mass. It’s not some magical sign from the universe that says “you don’t even NEED to lift because you can’t.” Fuck that.

Here’s what I’ve committed to for the next couple months:

Chest/back:

10 x 10 bench press

10 x 10 pulldowns

10 x 10 incline press

10 x 10 rows (also have played with supersetting 5 pullups with 5 dumbell back flys, but I’m not sure that even makes sense)

 

Shoulders/arms

10 x 10 shoulder press

10 x 10 concentration curls

10 x 10 dumbell shoulder fly

10 x 10 hammer curls

4 x 12-15 tricep ext.

 

Legs/abs

10 x 10 back squat

10 x 10 weighted step-back lunges

10 x 10 leg curl

10 x 10 calf raise

4 x 10 pullup crunch

4 x 10 hanging up and over crunch

Between each set, it’s important to keep the rest interval at a minute or less. That is what’s making it so hard, I think. Before, I didn’t time my rest intervals. Looking back it was a very lazy, casual program  (if you can even call it a program) and it’s no wonder I’d hit that underwhelming mezzanine.

Still, there’s a part of me that’s scared that my max will go down, since I could never bench press a lot to begin with. It was starting to get up to where I wanted it, but I don’t think much progress is possible until I give myself something to actually work with in terms of increasing strength. There’s only so much you can do with 180lbs at my height!

The hardest part is eating enough. Hunger takes on an entirely different form when you’re doing this. I’m not used to it. And the main thing that can screw this up for anyone is not eating properly.

Hopefully at the end of this, I’ll have gained enough to post before and after pictures!

 

 

 

 

Stats With Cats.

A fellow wordpress blog that everyone needs in their life.

Stats with Cats.

This actually made me create a new “Cats” category, and I’m shocked that it’s taken this long for me to add one.

I need to write more about cats.

Teaching People Is Hard.

 

Originally I’d started a post about how frustrating it is to see every second person on Facebook post stupid photos of stupid people wearing Guy Fawkes masks and protesting things like genetic engineering and oil pipelines. But I thought it was kind of boring and besides, those people don’t need any encouragement.

Instead, I’m going to write about how much respect I have for people who know how to teach other people how to do things.

This came up because last week I was at the Y doing bench presses and pullups and was reminded of this fact by one of the kids who worked there.

I’m not just being a ridiculous sentimental intellectual. For whatever reason, I’ve found myself thrust into positions of having to teach others, and every time found it insanely difficult to do properly. It is because of this struggle to grasp how to relate my own skills to others that I find it such an amazing skill to have. And the kid who is probably paid minimum wage at the Y was way better at doing it than I could ever hope to be.

What happened? Well, I was minding my own business and finishing with some lat pulldowns as a bonus round tacked onto the pullups. A group of regulars had asked the kid for some tips about deadlifts. The one guy actually seemed fitter than I am–at least upper-body wise. But he clearly wasn’t that comfortable with deadlifts and, being a smart person, asked for help before piling on the weight.

For anyone reading who doesn’t know : deadlifts are a deceptive compound lift that is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for being strong but hard to get right, and easy to hurt yourself doing. This man was right to ask for help.

I never asked for help. I never do.

Anyway, I had to pause and listen. There was no way these guys were going to walk away doing this lift wrong, because the kid was so damned good at explaining every muscle group involved and how they need to be working. He did it effortlessly, whereas any time I’ve had to instruct people about it, I’ve just been a hot mess of stupid anatomy terms and frustration. People like to tell you that you have to be passionate about something to teach it, but I disagree. I don’t lack passion about any of the things I’ve had to try teaching to people, but have failed every time.

I think teaching itself has to be more of a passion than the subject matter. That condescending saw “those who can, do; those who can’t teach” has some truth hidden beneath its smugness and hubris. Being really good at something doesn’t mean you can transmit that skill to others. I think this is why so many English teachers are bad. A lot of them wanted to be writers but spent their time getting a degree they thought they needed to do so, and when reality dawned on them, all they could do was teach as a backup.

To teach, you need to want to make other people better.

This is different from wanting to help them, I’ve realized. Because I don’t lack in that–I do it well. But I’ve tried teaching music, personal training, and, conveniently exactly a year ago this week, writing, and have fallen flat on my ass every time.

I did have an English teacher who made a difference. I just wish I’d tried harder at the time, or even just let him know that I was fascinated by the things he said and continued to think about his ideas ever since. Instead, I was a nervous quiet skid who hated school. He was a guy named Dave Snyder, and probably helped me to produce some good writing years after the fact. And all he really did was encourage critical thinking skills. To this day I am obsessed with critical thinking, all thanks to him. One of my favourite things about him was the way he’d always rant about people who smoked while riding bicycles. I still think of those rants whenever I see some vagrant smoking on a bicycle.

This makes me wonder why exactly I can’t teach people very well. I think it’s because I’ve learned most of the things I do by myself. I’ve taught myself French, how to be fit, jazz theory, classical theory, and how to write, among other things. Part of me just can’t understand why the person I’m supposed to teach hasn’t already taught themselves. Being an autodidact has its advantages, but in my case it’s removed me from a way people normally relate to one another.

Given that . . . thank you, all you good teachers/instructors out there!