The Making of the Strong Fat Man, Part Two

Zoids has been party to many different lifting routines over the ages: body part split, GVT, total body, Westside, high rep, low rep, no rep...the list goes on. It would be easy for me to conclude that the best of these workouts is westside since I am the strongest now that I ever have been, but that would sell short the objectives of the other training methods. Westside is geared towards the big three: squat, deadlift, bench. Who knows what your physique will be when you have a combined of 1500, but westside will get you there. GVT will probably give you the most money body, but I don't see the fun in benching 185 100 times, I'd rather bench 405 once.

Anyway, the point I am belaboring is that every training method has a different goal, an ideal body that it attempts to produce. You should bear that in mind anytime you read a new routine and say to yourself "what kind of body is this routine trying to build?" If you are reading a routine in Maxim, chances are that body is a slim emo turbo douche who struggles to lift the most modest of weights, but has totally killer sweet abz!

This training regimen, heretofore referred to as the big movement workout, is designed for the large man who desires to get strong. He will probably lose significant body fat while ascribing to this plan, but the overall goal of this routine is to get STRONG, not turn into Brad Pitt. Mainly because I have no experience being Brad Pitt. If you follow this workout (and part 1) you will undoubtedly lose weight, but more than anything it is going to turn you into this guy...

rather than this guy...


The purpose of the big movement workout is to utilize big movements. Squat, deadlift, bench, row, lunge! These are the staples. The big guy needs to divorce himself from working his smaller muscles because the focus needs to be on building muscle, rather than shaping it. The best way to stimulate muscle growth is to put as much of your body into as much strain as possible in a single movement. This workout is geared around several major exercises intended to drain you, but not cause hypertrophy. Remember, build muscle...not shape it. It is absolutely crucial make muscle before even considering the move to higher rep workouts.

Big Movement focuses on large, hellish movements. Isolation exercises are really in here only to fill in the gaps, as spending any more than token time on your smaller muscle groups is a waste. Any time you feel as though you aren't spending enough time on your guns, bear in mind THERE ARE NO GUYS WHO PULL 600 THAT HAVE SMALL BICEPS!

On to the workout, I have set this up as a 4 day routine.

Day 1 Heavy Legs 1
Day 2 Off
Day 3 Upper Body 1, Light Cardio
Day 4 Off
Day 5 Heavy Legs 2
Day 6 Upper Body 2, Light Cardio
Day 7 Off

First, a note on the addition of cardio...

I am highly resistant to the idea of adding cardio, I am firm believer in not sending mixed signals to your cardiovascular system, and any real effort on any machine is going to temper your musculature for two wholly different operations. However, until the big man packs on a lot of muscle, his body will not be prepped to burn more calories. Without the addition of lots of lean muscle, he will probably require some additional cardio in the beginning. For now, I have added light cardio into this workout...but it certainly is not a long term idea.

Light cardio means 20-30 minutes tops, at a light to moderate effort. A good workout may be a 2 mile jog, 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill at an incline of 8-15%, or 20 minutes on the erg at a slow rate (18-20 SPM) at somewhere between 2:04 and 2:10. The key here is to stay well below your lactic threshold. If at any time you feel like your heart rate is anything higher than 70%, turn it down.

If you have the ability to go to the gym more than 4 times per week, I would strongly urge the large man to put these cardio workouts on separate days, as far away from lifting as possible.

Remember....cardio is a secondary effort, and is only around to get your heart rate up and burn a little fat. Do not pursue cardio with any high degree of effort or you will find your ability to lift severely curtailed, muscle growth is the long term solution for burning fat...not cardio.


Heavy Legs 1:

Squat: 3 sets of 5, 2 sets of 3, 1 set of 1.
The goal here is to slowly pare down into one heavy lift that won't quite be an accurate measure of your 1 rep max (because you should be fairly exhausted by then) but will be fairly close. Squats should be performed with heavy weight ranging from 75% of your max all the way up to 90%. Take your time in between sets, your goal here is quality sets...not a high heart rate.
Stiff legged or Romanian Deadlift: 4 sets of 6
Time to hit the hammies and lower back! These exercises are far more effective than queer leg curls, and your lower back shouldn't be that tired from squats. Make an effort to keep you back rigid flat, and your knees almost locked.
Mid Abdominals: 4 sets of 8-10
Contrary to popular opinion, big strong guys should not do endless crunches to work their abs. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that every other exercise in my routine was high weight, low rep...why shouldn't abs be the same? Anyway, a good way to work your abs here is to set up the incline sit up bench at a height where you struggle your way through 8-10 reps.

Upper Body 1, Light Cardio

Bench Press: 3 sets of 5, 2 sets of 3, 1 set of 1
Same deal as the squat. Your grip should be precisely shoulder width (yes, this is a bit narrow) and you need to concentrate on pointing your elbows forward through both the concentric and eccentric phase. This is purely for shoulder health, it is very easy to turn your elbows out to engage more of your pecs, but you put your shoulder into a horrendous amount of external rotation. Save your rotator cuff and AC joint and go with a narrow(er) grip, elbows forward. It is harder in the short term because it throws more weight on your triceps...but hey...work your triceps more and quite whining.
DB standing Military press: 4 sets of 6
Sorry, I love shoulders. They have to find their way into this routine somewhere. I have them after chest so there is no question that emphasis is on pecs, not shoulders. Do them standing so you won't cheat.
Tricep Extensions (any variation): 3 sets of 10-12
A bit of hypertophy at the end.
Lower Abdominals: 4 sets of 8
Low ab pull in, leg raises, roman chair thingie...all these are great for your lower abs, or as I like to call it, the sex region.

Heavy Legs 2

Deadlift: 8 sets of 2
There are about 2 billion different variations of deadlift, so I would use this to your advantage and mix things up every once in a while. However, I'd stick to conventional for the first 2 months to get your form right and build up some posterior chain strength. Refer to part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this guy's info to get your form right.
Lunges: 4 sets of 6
Check this link out for proper form. It is easy to screw these up.
Upper Abdominals: 4 sets of 8
You'll never hear me say this again, but those sit ups on that damn ball are pretty effective. I started doing these as well.

Upper Body 2, Light Cardio

Pullups: 5 sets of 5
Now, I know it is going to be damn near impossible for our big guy to do a pullup. But that shouldn't stop the big guy from doing pull-downs. Pull downs are damn near intrinsic for lat development, which gives your arms a platform to lay down on as you bench (you are doing narrow grip, right?). The road to being a sailsman is paved with the pulldown. Just make sure you don't look like a worm on a hook, don't lean back or jerk the weight down, and pull it to just below chin level. Nice and slow.
Rows: 4 sets of 6
Again, lots of variation here. You can do t-row, bent over row, wide grip row, close grip, supinated grip row...all you have to do is make sure you don't exceed what you can do an honest rep with. Now, I am not saying bring the bar back until it touches your chest (unless you are doing bent over row) because this is generally beyond the limits of flexibility...but you'll know when you are cheating too much. It is important you keep your wits about you because back is an easy cheat when it is difficult to discern if you are done with a rep. Chest is easy...your rep is complete when you touch the bar to your chest (you are touching the bar to your chest?)...but back can be a bit more subjective. Just play it smart and don't rack up a whole lot of weight to do what is essentially a glorified shrug.
BB half bench: 4 sets of 5
Since you are moving to a narrower bench grip, you need to spend some time developing your triceps a bit more than normal. I love half bench. It trains the lockout from 4 inches above your chest up, where most people fail. It will take some time to get used to pausing in mid-air above your chest, but this exercise is killer for training your failure at lockout.


The Four Principles of the Big Movement Workout:

1) Never sacrifice big movements for small ones.
In other words, don't breeze through your chest just to get to shoulder or biceps. Never "save yourself" so that you can hit some new max with any smaller muscle group.
2) Quality sets, Quality reps
Keep your form, make every rep count, and rest plenty between the major lifts.
3) To become strong and in shape, you must build muscle, to build muscle you must strain your body to the maximum.
You must keep your motivation and push yourself week to week. These are big motions, and it takes a lot of gumption to get up set after set for tortuous squats...much more motivation than doing a set of curls. But you reap what you sow, the more you put in the more you get out.
4) Eat smart, and eat plenty.
Don't starve yourself, and eat lots of kittens.


Go get 'em.

Gym Equipment Part 1: Grip

STRAPS

Often times Zoids catches a wayward comment such as,

"Hey man, my grips sucks, I was thinking of buying some lifting straps..."

"What are you pulling?" - Zoids

"Uh, I don't know...225?"

Dios Mio, how are you supposed to build a grip when you default to this asshole everytime your forearms begin to fail?
I can't tell you how many times I have seen people in the gym using straps with their pulldowns at 110 lbs, or sweet mother of god, on a pressing exercise. Other than making you look like a terrific douche, you shouldn't need assistance to pull 1/2 your body weight. How do you get out of bed in the morning? OH SHIT I BETTER PUT ON MY BELT AND STRAPS I GOTTA PULL MYSELF OFF THE GODDAMN TOILET!!!!1.

Truth be told, straps blow. The totally take grip strength out of the equation, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you train your grip on a myriad of other exercises in which you are strapless (rows, DB anything, other pulls), but those bastards destroy your wrists nonetheless. I have blown a blood vessel numerous times from straps murdering me, and it takes forever to wrap up on a bar, and while you are doing so crouched down you are losing your psyche out and cramping your legs.

Chalk. Use it from now on. I tried it for the first time the other day and pulled 505. The bar never slipped, and my grip isn't exactly iron clad. Rather than the bar slipping, I lost about a square inch of skin from my right hand.

AWESOME!

Building better dog paws, is all I'll say.

It is so nice to just run right up to the bar, all pissed off about whatever it is that gets you pumped (rising cost of whey, hair loss, etc.) and pull. No set up, no wrap up...just you murdering your lumbar. Chalk is cheap, easy to use, and a fucking mess. But hey, its a lot more fun than straps, though I would suggest using the innernet to find it as every Sports Authority in the DC metro area is currently out of stock.

The Bad Workout

It happens, usually when you least expect it.

You strut into the weight room puffed out and ready to kick ass. You got a good night's rest, you are floating on BCAAs, and your blood is 50% caffeine and 50% sheer ass kickery. Then BAM! like a shot in the gut you miss a weight.

Fuck.

Ok, maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe you weren't warmed up or you weren't set right. You back off the weight and BAM! you miss even LESS weight.

My friend, you are about to have a terrible workout.


By now you're crushed. Your spirit has fallen ten thousand feet and all your hopes of hitting a new PR are dashed. What are you going to do? It is going to be a long hard slog and nothing is going to show for it.

Upon reflection, I realized most gym goers exercise with this method of thought every time they workout. These guys, dudes whose body shape and max press have remained the same number for years as they float in and out of the weight room. How do people come to terms with the stagnation of their own achievement?

The thing is, this concession to mediocrity is a steadily growing cancer. Men and women in their dead end jobs collecting a biweekly slip of paper that stays the same number for 30 years. Pretty sad when you think about it.

We all have bad workouts, and a wiser man than myself once told me these are the times when it is most crucial to do well. The day you know you are off, nothing is lining up right, and that nagging pain in your shoulder/knee/wrist/elbow seems a bit more agitating. If you can take that day, where nothing is going right, and manage to torture yourself into oblivion it proves that you have the self determination and purpose to get through the tough days. It is imperative to turn what could possibly be deleterious self-mutilation into performance.

Every time you train, just like every day you go to work, every moment you spend with your lady, you should be striving to get somewhere else, somewhere better. It may not be a big step, you may have to realize that today you are not going to bench 335. Maybe you do manage to get something done where previously there was a struggle. This desire to perform, to improve, to ascend, is something you have or you don't.

You either have purpose, or you float through life waiting for death.

In Defense of Nuclear Power

It is no secret that Zoidberg has an undying desire to see the release on energy on a grand scale. Anyone who does not feel chills run down their spine when watching footage of atomic tests is either missing a chromosome (probably Y) or is so wrapped up in their tree-huggering that they can't seem to find respect for man's achievement independent of the end use. Without delving into an causation is ultimate purpose argument, let's just leave it at splitting the atom is probably man's singular most impressive feat of the 20th century.

It comes as no surprise that with impressive achievements comes requisite fear, often unfounded or blown drastically out of proportion. No greater injustice has been dealt in the long history of technological injustice dealings as the rap that nuclear power has currently. Nuclear power in our nation is perceived as the big brother technology whose large concrete fabrications conceal devil machinations and processes that poop out horrible radioactive waste which curry the potential for unbelievable devastation. The hells fury of the atom hath wrought great destruction on this earth, and there will always be a direct comparison between the two radically different technologies no matter how informed the public is.

I am not going to belabor any ideas that nuclear power is a short term solution to our growing energy crisis, because it isn't. Nuclear power is a solution that will only flourish so long as it is supported by a society willing to embrace it, France is... America is not. Currently, nuclear reactors in America are expensive because we never spent the effort to learn to modularize them, they take a long time to build because our bureaucracy has them fight years of red tape to get approved, and inefficient because they were built at a trickle rate since the 70s so as to stymy any serious research in the field.

The truth of the matter is that the newest nuclear breeder reactors in use in France are:

1) Cheap, less than $1,000 per kilowatt, as opposed to $3,000 - $6,000 here.

2) Efficient, breeder reactors use make use of more readily available uranium and thorium

3) Safe, no recorded accidents (though the same could be said for the US)

4) Environmentally friendly, breeder reactors recycle up to 90% of spent fuel

I am not going to argue that the easiest way to a bright and energy dependent America would be to gradually unravel these roadblocks. All of them must be overcome if America is to see any serious tangible benefit from widespread nuclear power, and having this occur is a long term solution. Even if engineers would devote themselves full time to implementing modular reactor sites, without the freedom to build them quickly they would still suck millions without producing any cash flow.

I am going to argue why other alternative energy sources are not a long term solution, they are transient solutions that will not satisfy the equation long term, an equation that is satisfied solely by nuclear power and nuclear power alone. The core of the matter lies in available energy density, not in energy efficiency, or the availability of the energy source.

My first assumption is that energy consumption in America is ever increasing, and the increase of available power will always drive technological, social, and industrial growth.

America demands energy. Her operation and rise to power was fed by the life blood of power during the industrial revolution, and major technological breakthroughs have been possible because of the ready and available supply of power. Power drives our society, with it the constructs of civilization operate. A surfeit will always be of use whereas a restriction almost always hinders social, technological, and industrial growth. No matter how "earth-friendly" we become by turning out our lights, driving hybrids, or not running the faucet while we brush, our energy consumption will increase over time based on the fact that human population is, and always will, skyrocket.


My second assumption is that all alternative methods of energy production have a finite and readily calculable maximum energy output. Although solar fanatics like to tout the fact that the total amount of solar energy absorbed by the earth is on the order of 89 petawatts (a lot, I assure you), which is 6000 times the current energy demands of the earth, these idiots assume that this energy would be available for consumption only if the entire fucking surface of the earth was covered in solar panels.

Anyway, the maximum amount of energy that can be absorbed by the sun is around 1.4 kw/ square meter. This is a scientific absolute, you can't get any more than that. The sun is just not that big. Today's best solar panels are 40% efficient, and even if we assume a technological breakthrough that yields 100%, you still can only extract from an energy density of 1.4 kw/ m^2. Today's energy energy consumption by the US is 3.3 terawatts, or 3.3x10^12 watts. This would mean that even if we had magical solar panels, it would still take a panel with an area of 2.35 million fucking square kilometers to power America. This assumes current energy demands...current...imagine what we will need 50 years from now.

The answer isn't reduce energy needs, that is a statistical and scientific improbability. Am I getting through to anyone yet as to the long term futility here? Everyone loves to bang on the drum of solar technology without realizing that yeah it's wonderful but it provides 0.08% of the total worlds supply of energy. There is a reason for that. You can't get that much out of it, period.

I won't waste my time with wind, tidal, or geothermal power because the efficiencies of these processes are similar to solar (20-40%) and the hard scientific limit of maximum power density available is similar (geothermal) or far far less than solar energy density (wind/tidal). So let us cut to the chase and provide you with conclusion number one:

Modern renewable energy technologies, even with perfect efficiency and incredibly cheap cost, are scientifically unable to provide enough energy to sustain America now, much less in the future. Unless you break a couple laws of thermodynamics.

So, how is nuclear power different you ask? Nuclear power gets electricity from heat via the carnot cycle (steam power) which is 33% efficient, so at best we can get three times the available electricity from the available heat. Why yes, even if we had a magical method of extracting electricity from available energy, we would at best do three times better. We still would not solve the problem.

EXCEPT

Heat available from a nuclear reactor is provided by nuclear fission, the process of making uranium unstable by bombarding it with neutrons until it splits releasing more neutrons, energy, and two smaller isotopes. The future of nuclear technology is in nuclear fusion, which is currently funded at abysmal levels because people have a hard on for windmills. Nuclear fusion provides energy by fusing together two molecules (usually hydrogen in the form of heavy water and heavy heavy water) at high temperature and pressure so that the reaction makes helium, a neutron, and lots of energy. Again, I don't want to become to embroiled in science, but it is necessary to draw the distinction between the two processes.

So what is the energy density of fusion? Is it really that much better than solar radiation?


GUESS WHAT CELESTIAL BODY IS FUCKING RUNS ON FUSION

The energy density of fusion is governed by the equation E = MC^2, so the amount of energy available is titanic. There is essentially no hard limit, the energy density available to be utilized will never be a concern, and if we are talking about theoretical maximum energy production, the entirety of America's energy demand could be satisfied by one fusion reactor processing 10 kilograms of hydrogen.

But hey, this is a long way away. It requires several quantum leaps in scientific understanding, a completely new and radical method of extracting electricity from heat (other than 200 year old steam tech) and trillions in funding. But from a society that put a man into the sky, space, and moon within the span of 50 years, I am sure we can do it.

My final conclusion here is that our future energy needs can only be satisfied by the implementation of a radical new technology, one whose efficiency is not important, rather its energy density. This technology is nuclear fusion, and it is the only path in our future.

Footnote: Citing sources is for chumps. Look me up if you disagree, honestly I don't care.