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10-28-18 08:03 PM - Post#872769
You only listed meals through lunch. May we assume this is to fuel training later in the day? If so, do you also have post workout recommendations (snack, dinner)?
I'm in no way a nutritionist. But this is not really about ideal nutrition, it's about trying to build good habits. If they get breakfast right, they'll probably get lunch and dinner right. If they get lunch right, they'll almost certainly get dinner right.
By "right" I mean following the Australian government's , or at least 80% of the way there. Like I said, only 47% of Aussies eat 2+ pieces of fruit a day, and only 7% get 5+ serves (2.5 cups chopped) of vegies. Most people get plenty of protein, it's just coming packaged with a lot of other stuff, like a chicken nugget or something.
It's like DJ said about the 5+1 movements: you get someone who isn't squatting and doing loaded carries, you get them to do them, and in three weeks they're better. "Find out what they're not doing, get them to do it, they're better!"
I think it's the same for food. "Find out what they're not eating, get them to eat it, they're better!" And most people aren't getting enough fruit and vegies and fibre.
DJ used to say a lot, quoting his old coach, "The beginning and end of all nutrition questions is: what did you have for breakfast?" And I've found this to be very true.
The best answer I ever got was, "couple of VBs." That's a heavy beer here in Australia. Did I really need to ask him what he had for lunch? Did it matter?
I trained a guy, 30 years old, he was taking Metamucil. I asked, "What did you have for breakfast?" He answered, "Last three days, white bread roll with chicken loaf and mayo in the car on the way to work."
"Okay, how about you try... some oats. Get up 15 minutes earlier, cook oats and eat them."
"Hey," said his wife, "we're shift workers, our sleep is precious to us."
"I'm a father of young kids, I get that. But here's the thing: you're taking Metamucil. Have you ever had trouble sleeping because of constipation? Even woken in the night with a bad belly? Maybe if things were flowing better, you'd have 15 minutes more sleep at the start, and the other sleep would be better."
"Fair enough."
"Come over here and write on the whiteboard, "I will set the alarm 15 minutes earlier and get up and make and eat oats for breakfast. And sign it. And then everyone in the gym can see."
One week later he didn't need Metamucil anymore. He's a doctor, by the way. So this is not about knowledge - he knew what to do! - this is about habits. So I think that saying of DJ's is very astute: if they get breakfast right, then probably the rest of the day won't be awful.
This also follows the work of Coach Stevo of Habitry.com: find 1-2 small sustainable habits that will have an impact. It doesn't have to be a huge impact, just enough to make the person think, "I changed something, and I'm better... maybe I could change other things?"
There's a vid with DJ coaching the snatch, and he says, "This thing where they swing the bar out... I used to try to fix that, then I realised they'll do that with the empty bar, they won't do that with 60kg." Just by snatching a lot, without anyone poking at them, they figure things out. That had a big impact on me, that insight - it's one of those things that's obvious once someone else says it. Fix one or two things, and over time watch the other stuff just fall into place without your having to do anything else. I call it Lazy Coaching, but we could call it coaching minimalism.
Or maybe Easy Coaching. Fix one or two things, then sit back and let the other things fall into place over time.
If they get breakfast right, they'll probably get lunch and dinner right. If they get lunch right, they'll almost certainly get dinner right. Without my saying anything more.
I know you've had success coaching masters class powerlifters. Have you tried this method as meet prep? Beginners and early intermediates would do well, of course, but I've always felt more advanced lifters need to practice straining with heavier weight (at least a few sessions of 90%+ two to four weeks out from competition). Based on your impressive squat numbers, however, I may have to rethink that philosophy. Any thoughts?
I think you're right, competitive lifters need some time grinding away. The disadvantage of any "minimum effective dose" approach is that if you do a meet, that might be the first time in your life you've ever felt that weight on your back or in your hands. I have actually had lifters miss their openers that way - they were physically quite capable of lifting it, but they freaked out. They went on to make that lift as a second, but it was a wasted attempt.
Now, these are all beginner lifters, in their first couple of years of lifting. What follows is just speculation, I want to be clear. I think it would be different for someone with decades of lifting. A newbie will panic, someone who's been doing it for years won't.
Say you get a guy with 12 months' lifting experience, and another with 10 years, both can squat 200kg. Both take three months off. The first guy has to basically start again from nothing, the second guy can start back just 20% down from where he was. It's that lifting experience. So I would say that the second guy can actually get more from an Easy Strength approach.
On the other hand, older lifters seem to detrain very quickly, and need to stay at a high percentage of their max to keep it up there. But those older lifters I've trained all started when they were older, I haven't trained 70 years who've been lifting since they were 20. And as I said above, I think that's a different thing.
But on the whole, no, I wouldn't recommend Easy Strength for a powerlifting meet.
Kyle- what were your average rest periods between sets?
Fairly lengthy. My gym's also my workplace with a bookshelf, and my workout time is my time to myself without kids or clients around, so I sit and read training books between sets. I didn't need to sit around for ten minutes between sets. I wasn't trying to make it quick.
I don't time anyone on workouts in my gym, except that at 6 o'clock I'm going in for dinner, and at 9 o'clock the gym closes unless you're really interesting to talk to.
Rest until you're ready to go again. Most people in my gym rest much longer than they need to, the gym is their coffee shop, there's lots of chatting. That's okay, it's a community. They develop body and soul together. They take 1.5-2hr to do a workout they could do in 1hr.
deadlifts and any kind of squat really feels like "too much" - it's 20 hard reps for the legs and core, not 10.
I think this is right. Either squat, or deadlift. Though obviously as Miler says, you might do some of other movements as a warmup, I think you do have to choose which to focus on for those 6 weeks. I didn't even try to deadlift after squatting 180. Of course, that wasn't a "sorta max", so in fact I might really have gained 5-10kg on the squat, not 15. It wasn't this year so that's just my memory of it looking back.
Edited by Kyle Aaron on 10-28-18 08:07 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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