Thoughts on DC's (Doggcrap) blog

I never heard of the guy before and I ran into his forum while looking for answers of my own. He seems to have become a big name in online bodybuilding community and is being referenced all over the place. He seems like a dedicated and - more importantly - thinking guy who has done his fare share of research and, of course, lifting. On the pictures of him that I found on the net he looks like a pretty big guy too. Besides writing on the net he does personal training and apparently works with clients online. I didn't do a lot of reading on it so I can't comment on his approach with full authority but I picked up a few bits and pieces of his philosophy by reading some of the threads.

For those few things that I picked up I do not necessarily agree with all of them but all provided some valuable food for thought - even those I didn't agree with. Again, these are thoughts based on my personal interpretation of what I think I understood about his philosophy.

1. Lift with high intensity high enough but keep sessions short enough. In that way it is very similar to HIT ideas. Either way the point here is that sessions should be intense enough to trigger anabolic response as much as possible at the same time without unduly taxing your body - mostly CNS. Length of a session and frequency depends on personal metabolic capabilities (body's ability to adapt and heal). Ultimately, as I understand, there's a relationship between intensity, length and frequency. The more intense the session is, the shorter it will be in length and the longer it will take for the body to fully recover from it. Also, I think, what happens is - muscle itself recovers fairly quickly to its original state (in terms of its ability to overcome load) - most estimates range from 24 to 72 hours - it's central nervous system that takes longer to recover and for supercompensation to occur.
2. Progressive overload. Weights should increase progressively - expectedly at every session. That I've been hearing all my life as one of the key bodybuilding principles. It does make sense however I have a feeling that it is often misinterpreted - in a seemingly strange but perfectly logical way if you think about it. My experience is: I would start a training program - I would increase weight (or reps) next time - or at least try to. I'm pretty diligent and dedicated so I would try to do it on all exercises, would keep a log, push myself harder, get mad at myself when I can't squeeze out another rep on those same movements, only to get stuck and burnt out 3 or 4 weeks later and realize that I just can't go on like this any longer! It wasn't until recently when I suddenly discovered that all this time I was apparently missing a key point here. Namely, that weight increase in a progressive overload principle should not be just a result of conscious decision to increase weight but it must also be a result of increased capability!!! In other words, besides you conscously trying to push yourself harder every time you body has to tell you that it's recovered enough to handle the increased load! The trick is to be able to tell when it happens...
3. Paying your dues. In one of his posts DC (whose real name is Dante Trudel) vents about people who often approach him for training advice who seem to have been lifting for years but barely gained an ounce of muscle despite the effort and who still look like they haven't been lifting at all. I can understand his frustration as he probably feels that they haven't paid their dues - i.e. - haven't been working hard enough and eating enough - in other words - haven't put in their due diligence and dedication - otherwise they would have been big already. Plus he feels that many of them may be overanalyzing and overthinking, which I believe may well be true - for me anyways, because I'm one of those guys. He says something like: go lift heavy every time till you puke, eat like an animal, pack on some serious muscle, become a 300 lb big fat front linebacker and then you come back and work with me; until then quit worrying about subtleties like 'what's the best way to hit the top head of the biceps during concentration curls'. Now being one of those guys here's what I think. I think the fact that they haven't reached their goal is not because they are necessarily lazy or stupid or messed up. They may well have been honestly trying what they thought was their best to become what they thought they wanted to become. Following every book, every training and nutrition program they could get their hands on they hoped would get them where they wanted to be. I did anyways. I would try, I would push, then I would get overtrained and frustrated only to start over and over again. If the fact that I've been trying for 20 years, as hard as I thought I can, without giving up - if that fact is not a proof of ultimate dedication - then I don't know what is! I just need to find what works for me. That's why I'm here searching for answers.
4. Not everyone wants to get really big. I don't and I'm sure there are thousands of those who don't want to be 250 lbs - even if it's shredded! I do not believe that Ronnie Coleman is everyone's idea of a perfect body. If I think of my ideal body - it will be a lot closer to Frank Zane or Serge Nubret than Dorian Yates. Great definition - yes, big - not necessarily...
5. The ideal routine. I haven't found it yet but I'm getting there. So how do I visualize my ideal routine?

• Sessions are intense but not insanely so. I do not believe that you have to bring yourself to life-and-death match point to get the body you're looking for. There's gotta be another way...
• Sessions are short. I do not believe you have to spend hours at a gym to get where you want. I'm tired of being tired. I believe when people say: you have to feel stronger at the end of each workout - not weaker. If it means 1 set of 1 exercise only per session - so be it!
• Sessions are spaced apart far enough for full recovery to occur. I won't be going back to the gym until I'm fully recovered and feel stronger than I was before.

(...to be continued)

My thoughts on Ego games

I originally wrote them down and put into my Google Documents online folder so instead of copy-and-pasting I decided to simply add the link here -->

My thoughts on Ego games

These are some thoughts I had on ego, the games it plays and how it affects us in various aspects of our life.

Enticing, not forcing...

I don't believe that torturing your body physically into something it inherently resists is a natural way to attain an ultimate physical shape. It may be the most obvious way or a way people were led to believe was true through centuries or what an official science believes is true - but I feel that there must be a better or more efficient way.

My explanation of why I think this self-torture approach sometimes works is because sometimes it brings you to a change of lifestyle or the entire mental attitude or frame of mind and that's what makes it successful - not extreme self-annihilating training by itself. In my opinion the very idea about hard, intense and merciless training being the only tool to transform your body is a major misconception (or rather misattribution) that we were blindfolded by for decades.

My feeling is that the body resists the changes we want to see not because it is inherently lazy or inert, but because it reflects our inner state of mind and energy balance. I believe that at each specific moment we have a body that fully corresponds to our current mental state - whether we realize it or not. When our body craves something that is not considered "healthy" I think it should not be treated as a bad habit - but rather as a signal that something may be out of balance in our inner energy field. In my opinion the problem often lies in the fact that when we discover a craving (for instance, for potato chips or french fries) we start treating it as a "bad habit" and then our response ranges from total acceptance and letting ourselves "balloon" to a shape we do not want to desperate attempts to "fix" it by employing willpower and trying to resist the craving.

But if we look in the mirror and discover that there's something we don't like about the reflection we see we don't go trying to change the reflection or fix the mirror, do we? We know that image in the mirror is merely a reflection of what we are (or what we look like for that matter) - and the mirror simply provides us with honest feedback about the way we look.

As it has been said many times in many ways: What you resist to, persists. To me often times the approach that we apply to our body is that same violent approach which mankind has been using to address many other problems for centuries. If you don't like what you see - simply use the most obvious way - through violence. If you don't like the cat hanging around your backyard - force it out of your yard (or sometimes even kill it). If you don't like that your child watches too much TV or plays computer games - ground them or deny their access to the computer. If you don't like that your body is getting flabby - starve it or put it on a restrictive diet. Seems so easy, doesn't it? Except that the method often appears inefficient and the results often prove to be short-lived, so we press even harder only to discover that the problem manifests itself in a different form later.

I think that there has to be a non-violent way of changing this "reflection in the mirror". A way that encourages or invites a positive change rather than forcing it. In the "cat" example: instead of forcing the cat out of your yard, try making it feel LIKE going elsewhere, make it more attractive to the cat to stay outside of your yard. Instead of denying your child of computer games or TV, try to understand what it is that drvies them to it and then try to make it more attractive for them to be "away" from it without manipulating them through the use of guilt or fear.

I believe that when we bring our inner energy field to balance and adjust our mental state we will discover that our body has stopped craving food that we consider "unhealthy" - it will simply be enjoying other types of food. Instead of craving "Doritos" we may soon find that our body wants an orange or an apple and feels happy with it just as much as it once craved chips. I feel that the same applies to getting rid of "love handles", unwanted fat deposits in the abdominal area, etc.