Plague of Strength

Ask the Asshole #7- Bring The Motherfucking Ruckus

Jamie Chaos

Q: I’ve been reading the John Broz Q&A on the bodybuilding.com forums. He says that, ideally, one should squat to max everyday. This is because squatting is not too taxing on the CNS, and they use such large muscles. He says that squatting less actually makes you more prone to injury, since your muscles and tendons will be recovering at different rates. What’s your take/experience with this?

Here’s what I’m thinking about doing, with AM being very light and PM being very heavy.

AM: Bears————-PM: Back Squats
AM: Back Squats—PM: Push/Pull
AM: Bears————-PM: Front Squats
AM: Back Squats—PM: Push/Pull
AM: Bears————-PM: Back Squats
AM: Back Squats—PM: Push/Pull

A: Usually, I find that squatting more than three times a week makes me cramp horribly around my knees. This is not knee pain- it’s cramping in the muscles of my quads near their insertions, accompanied by a preponderance of small knots clustered around the tendons that anchor my quads.  A good way to test this is to squat as many times as you want for two weeks in a row.  Just fucking have at it.  Then, at the end of the two weeks, try to jump up and slap the ceiling or something.  When you 1) have a vertical leap worthy of a middle school girl playing for the special ed team, and 2) collapse to the fucking ground when your legs lock up upon landing and then roll around on the ground screaming for someone to put a bullet in your ear and end your misery, you’ll know you squatted too often.

As for your routine, I HATE squatting in the morning, and I think it’s dangerous to squat to max in the am, due to the fact that your spinal column isn’t lubricated, and your discs could be drier than Paris Hilton’s faux vagina.  That bitch’s libido is faker than her face.  That aside, I’d stick to light front squats for your morning workouts, to avoid blowing out your spine and your o-ring, and then shitting your pants and being permanently banned from the gym and crippled.

Q: Hello Jamie I’ve got a question for you. I do martial arts and sessions are 3-4 times a week running about two hours each. The sessions can be pretty taxing, usually my heart is pumping pretty hard in an interval pattern. Due to the transitioning through various movements and rests etc. I am around 12-13% bf and eat paleo and want to get to about 8-9% bf. Would your keto diet be ok considering my training schedule and get me to what I want to be? Also would carbs from green veggies knock you out of keto? Thanks!

A: Duchaine believes they would. I’m not convinced, but I’d go without veggies during your first couple of keto runs.  Various pundits have proffered the idea that one would actually benefit greatly from switching to a ketogenic diet to aid endurance performance, a supposition that’s supported by at least one study: HELGE, JØRN W.; WULFF, BOLETTE; KIENS, BENTE, “Impact of a fat-rich diet on endurance in man: role of the dietary period.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: March 1998 – Volume 30 – Issue 3 – pp 456-461.  In that study, they found that “time to exhaustion, when exercising at the same absolute workload, was similar in T-FAT and T-CHO at all tests and was significantly increased by 166% and 150% in T-FAT and T-CHO, respectively, after 4 wk.”  Compelling, to be sure, but I’d suggest you dabble in a bit of the old quackery and determine your metabolic type before you throw yourself headlong into ketogenic dieting for endurance training.  I know that I keto dieted during my sophomore year of college while wrestling, and I had no problem with endurance, though I was fucking chugging that godawful Metaform Heat shit three times a day and narrowly avoided multiple heart attacks doing so.  Those old heads amongst you might remember it- Weider’s knockoff of Met-Rx, in Chocolate Raspberry, smelling like a syphilitic whore’s crotch and tasting like the same after she spent a week drinking Tijuanan water and eating Taco Bell, plus enough ephedrine to jumpstart a dead rhino into a suicide charge that’d make the Charge of the Light Horse look like a casual stroll through botanical gardens.  Brutal shit, that.  Alas… I find myself missing it.

Fucker had to get one thing right in his life… and now it’s off the market.

Q: Jamie, do you have any history on the BTN push press? Is it indeed a Scandanavian/Euro Strongman lift? Or something that percolated in from discus/shotputters? Be curious to get some BTN lore.

A:  Unfortunately, I do not.  I fancy myself something of a scholar, if you hadn’t noticed, but this isn’t an exercise that I obtained by reading about it or seeing it done.  For me, this evolved naturally out of an exercise that I started doing for no reason whatsoever, and that was the eventual catalyst for the methodology I now espouse.  The exercise is one that is probably not unique to me, but I’ve never seen anyone else do- squat to BTN press.  Similar to a thruster, only from the back.  As such, they’re not as fluid, but I move a hell of a lot more weight than a crossfitter on thrusters.  I drop into a deep squat, sit at the bottom for a beat or two, and then explode up, driving the back off my shoulders as I hit full extension.  I discovered that if I shortened my squat, I was able to press a hell of a lot more… which is how I came to start doing BTN push presses.  About six months later, I saw a video of Mariusz doing them, and started throwing a hell of a lot more weight on the bar and really going for fucking broke on them.  Seeing the strongest guy on the planet destroying your 1rm completely on an exercise you thought you’d invented is a sobering event- the realization that I wasn’t an innovator, and that I got pwned at my favorite exercise was probably akin to Robert Downey Jr’s realization that he had gotten so fucking hammered that he broke into his neighbor’s house and passed out their kid’s race car bed- it’s not a good time.

Thus, my apologies, but I have no lore to impart. 

Q: Dear Mr Chaos & Pain,
thank you for the opportunity to pose questions. For the behind the neck push variations how does one get the bar back down without hurting ones neck ??? for light weights it is easy, but as we get heavy ???? thanks so much for your time and patience. i especially enjoy your colorful use of adjectives in your blog.
all the best

A:  For the record, I’m consistently impressed with the number of people who read this blog from non-English speaking countries.  Thank fuck for google translate, I suppose.  There is, however, one thing I find irksome with this message beyond the lack of capitalization, abandonment of apostrophes, and sentence fragments- the fucking multiple question marks.  Has the world simply thrown in the fucking towel?  Do you really think that a single question mark is insufficient to convey the fact that your statement is of an interrogative nature?  If so, allow me to allay your fears-
IT’S NOT. 

That stated, the BTN press is a tricky one- drop the bar too high and you end up with a brutal crick in your neck and a three day headache.  Drop it too low and you strain the shit out of your biceps and brachialis.  Thus, my suggestion is for you to drop it in the middle.  The only way to determine where that spot is is through trial and error, and greasing the holy living fuck out of the groove, Pavel style.  That means a lot of reps.  Not lots per set- lots of low rep sets.  Practice doesn’t make perfect- perfect practice does, and you want to practice the same way you’ll play, so keep the reps low and hammer away until you’re comfortable with the exercise. 

“Neurogeeks never got around to telling iron heads that repetitive and reasonably intense stimulation of a motoneuron increases the strength of its synaptic connections and may even form new synapses. Translated in English it means that multiple repetitions of a bench press will ‘grease up’ this powerlift’s groove. More ‘juice’ will reach the muscle when you are benching your max. The muscle will contract harder and you will have a new PR to brag about. Four times powerlifting world record holder Dr. Judd Biasiotto set up a bench in his kitchen, got in the habit of hitting it every time he was in the area and put up a 319BP @ 132!”(Tsatsouline, Pavel.  “Grease the Groove for Strength”) 

Q: What are your recommendations for breakfast on Paleo when trying to gain weight. I’m as low on bodyfat as I want to go (5-7%). I have recently tried adding oatmeal (.5 cup dry) to my breakfast of 4 whole eggs, some meat, and olive oil. Your thoughts?

A:  Paleo’s not the way you really want to go if you’re attempting to pack on mass.  Yeah, it’ll get you fucking lean, and it will keep you fucking lean, but strict paleo generally doesn’t provide enough calories for you to gain much weight.  That’s where the carb cycling comes in.  I’ve had a lot of success cycling days of no carbs, medium carbs, and higher carb/cheat meal days.  Doing so also cycles caloric intake, as I’ve found that caloric intake, when keeping fat and carbs inversely proportional, also keeps calories inversely proportional.  Thus, on low carb days, kcals are relatively high, as a gram of fat has 9 calories, as opposed to a gram of protein or carbs, which has 4.  Thus, cycling lowcarb-medcarb-highercarb is effectively a high calorie-low calorie-medium calorie cycle, and adding cheat meals adds to the metabolic fun.  

As I rarely eat breakfast foods (although I will make sausage biscuit sandwiches using lowfat Bisquik and Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage [to which you could also add egg and cheese, if you’re so inclined] on the occasional cheat meal day), I wouldn’t recommend my breakfast for most.  A typical breakfast for me consists of one of my proprietary low carb/high protein pizzas, wings, or a lb of 93% lean ground beef… i.e., the same thing I’d eat for any other meals.  I abandoned meal names long ago for a numerical feeding time system, and concurrently abandoned traditional meal foods.  Thus, asking me about breakfast food advice is akin to asking Tara Reid to help you with your homework in Quantum Mechanics.

I will, however, recommend that you keep your non-training days as close to no-carb as possible to facilitate lean mass gain and prevent lipogenesis. 

It’s a fucking shame that stupidity is kryptonite for my cock.
Q: I was thinking about the post of baddest mother fuckers and how Grimek was still crushing shit when he was in his 70’s. I was thinking about how i want to be when im old so i just wanted to know your opinion on it also because i respect your opinion. also i wanted to know your opinion on heavy long term weightlifting and joint health? keep up the good shit man its up to us to make a difference in this place called Earth….

A:  This brings up an interesting point.  As I’m sure you’ve already realized, people will blather on endlessly about how “this shit won’t work once you turn 30/40/50.”  I recently had a guy tell me that when I turned thirty, I was going to start having trouble getting out of bed, I’d be losing body parts like a fucking leper, and I would generally wish I was dead if I continued on lifting in this manner.  I didn’t tell the guy I was 33, given that he was 29 and acting like he was older than Methusela, but that shit cracks me up.  Heavy partials have been definitiely proven to improve tendon and ligament strength.  My lower back’s so fucking strong from constant singles with 90+ 1RM that it’d easily hand a small caliber gunshot.  I wake up in the morning and fucking piss excellence.

Thus, what will I be like when I’m 70?  Hopefully, fucking 30 year olds and mocking the fuck out of pussies in the bar who lift with gloves and fear everything under the sun, much like the most interesting man in the world from the Dos Equis commercials (my mom has a tattoo that reads “Son”) would do.  There’s far too much bullshit going on in the world, and like Jesse the motherfucking Body, I ain’t got time to bleed.  Other than my elbow, which is fucked from wrestling (not powerlifting) and healed at a rate that blew my fucking orthopedist doctor’s mind (bear in mind the man is a butcher and a hack, and I’d like to see him pureed and spread on a fucking Triscuit cracker for the mockery of medicine he applied to my injured limb), I have no joint problems.  I have a coworker who threw out his back SITTING DOWN IN A FUCKING DECK CHAIR who’s my age… I think I’ll be just fucking fine at 70, and so will you.  Just keep it fucking brutal. 

Q:  I’ve been chewing d-bol like they’re fucking Flinstones vitamins and am scared I’m losing my hair.  Any ideas?

A:  Actually, yeah.  My dad’s been bald since he was 19, and I’m hell-bent on not joining him in the land of the hairless.  As such, I use the following- Nizoral shampoo, Rogaine, and Proscar.  The first two are topical treatments, and the third is a generic Finasteride i get from inhousepharmacy.com.  Shit’s keeping it solid on the hair front.  That’s my recommendation, vain and ridiculous as it might seem.

He might be old, but he’s a bad motherfucker. 

Oh, and take some fucking milk thistle, fucker.  

That’s it for this iteration of ask the asshole.  There’s a shitload more questions I need to answer, and you can rest assured that I’ll do so on my time, but I’ll do it, haha. 

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Jamie Chaos Avatar
Jamie Chaos
I am a former all-time, all federation world record holder in raw powerlifting at 181lbs, a record I broke just to say fuck you to the internet’s “lifting” community and the powerlifting community at large. Over the last ten years I’ve written over 500 articles on strength training, nutrition, and supplementation, and continue to do so simply to fight the tide of weakness and sadness that currently pervades the scene I’ve called home for the better part of three decades. I’ve got personal trainin certs, BodyPump and BodyCombat certs, a BA in History and East Asian Studies from the University of Arizona, and MBAs from the Vienna University and University of South Carolina on my side, in addition to some sick lifts and a hell of a lot of rage. What the fuck have you got?

44 responses to “Ask the Asshole #7- Bring The Motherfucking Ruckus”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Now that you mention her, I just remembered Paris Hilton has a porno. The fact that I, a chronic masturbator, forgot means she's really that boring.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The idea of chronic masturbation is born from the same vein of thought that suggests having sex more than once a week with the lights off in the missionary position is evident of sex addiction. You're not a "chronic" masturbator, but instead a "competitive" masturbator. You're one of the elite.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Nice Tosh quote on Paris.

  4. Ryan Avatar
    Ryan

    Yeah, I've applied the ascribed "Q&A with John Broz" Squat Theory. It worked like a charm. I maxed out 4 days a week; leaving Monday a 5×5 day to get back into squatting. It worked amazingly for me; my back squat went up 20 pounds, while my front squat went up to a solid 40 pounds.
    Your hamstrings and glutes might cramp though and you will feel like your legs are made out of pretzels. Leaving you to barely walk…you'll be fine though and start loving the PR's.

    Jamie, your dad is the man.

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Anonymous #2
    Well said. You got it exactly right. I always finish in 5 seconds or less. As far as I'm concerned I finish right on time. Practice doesn't make perfect- perfect practice does, and you want to practice the same way you'll play, so keep the reps low and hammer away until you're comfortable with the exercise.

    Yeah, I've applied the mindset of being a "competitive" masturbator. It worked like a charm. I maxed out 4 days a week; leaving Monday a 5×5 day to get back into squatting. It worked amazingly for me; my back squat went up 20 pounds, while my front squat went up to a solid 40 pounds.
    Your hamstrings and glutes might cramp though and you will feel like your legs are made out of pretzels. Leaving you to barely walk…you'll be fine though and start loving the PR's.

  6. Dray Avatar
    Dray

    Wow, jesus man (guy above me) for a second on that second paragraph you were talking about masturbation still, but your editing was off.

    YOU MAX OUT FOUR DAYS A WEEK???

    Oh YEAH, and if you'll check his encyclopedia of weight-lifting, Arthur Saxon practiced a reverse continental to BTN push press, which I believe is the earliest form of this exercise.

    A lot of lifters have done behind the neck jerks but I'm fairly sure that Saxon did a push jerk from behind the neck.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I find that usually the native English speakers are the ones making more spelling and grammar mistakes.

  8. Dr. Dave Avatar
    Dr. Dave

    What is the exercise known as "The Bear"? I know I saw it described on a post quite a while ago, but can't seem to locate it in the archives.

  9. Jamie Lewis Avatar
    Jamie Lewis

    The bear's not my invention, btw- I read about it in an article about John Davies. The super bear was something I invented out of sheer masochism along with the owner of Crossfit Renaissance in Philly.

    And yeah, my dad's the fucking man, haha.

  10. Dr. Dave Avatar
    Dr. Dave

    Thanks guys. Definitely giving that one a try!

  11. Steve Reishus Avatar
    Steve Reishus

    I worked up to squatting 6 days a week on average for roughly a month or so. I would work up to a training max for the day, then drop and do 2 to 4 sets of singles, doubles, or triples. My squat was down a bit (365), so some gains were just getting things back in order, but after 4 heavy days in a row towards the end of that month and a half period, I hit a 415 squat at 155 lb. bodyweight. No recovery or peak, no psyche up, nothing. It works like a charm. And contrary to what I expected, I was never tired and sore after the first week. I managed to catch the squat on video as well, so you can see it's legitimate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjAa2GKZglk

  12. Rant Avatar
    Rant

    C&P,

    Does your father approve of your "lifestyle"? Just curious. It's all good.

  13. Jamie Lewis Avatar
    Jamie Lewis

    Rant-

    J Abnorm Psychol. 1996 Aug;105(3):440-5.
    Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?

    Adams HE, Wright LW Jr, Lohr BA.

    Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens 30602-3013, USA.
    Abstract

    The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

    Enjoy the glory hole this evening, haha. You are the king of all douches.

  14. Rant Avatar
    Rant

    Your father must be soooo disappointed…and who could blame him.

  15. Jamie Lewis Avatar
    Jamie Lewis

    Generally, interrogative statements end with a question mark. You'd know that if you weren't a fucking moron.

    Incidentally, you have yet to make a single substantive remark about anything, ever. Compounding your rhetorical failings is the fact that your spectacularly limited vocabulary appears to be restricted to that which would be considered average for a 4th grader. Congratulations! You're fat, weak, stupid, and possibly a self-loathing homosexual.

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Don't forget old. Rant is old and washed up…

  17. Dray Avatar
    Dray

    Notice how his website no longer shows up with his name.

  18. Dr. Dave Avatar
    Dr. Dave

    Apart from sheer entertainment value, is there any reason why this "rant" person is allowed to exist? He doesn't seem to contribute anything meaningful, interesting or positive to the conversations here.

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    For some reason my email account is being a retarded fucker right now so i'll ask the question on here. Is it detrimental to never bench? I'd rather focus on strict presses and BTN push presses, i just hate benching. Would dips and frequent overhead pressing be a decent way to go?

  20. Dr. Dave Avatar
    Dr. Dave

    From what I have read the only really GOOD reason to include bench AS A MUST in your workout is if you are being tested on it, such as in football or other sports where it is part of the routine evaluation procedures. Personally, my bench has always sucked, so I want to strengthen it and continue to pursue the bench.

  21. Jamie Lewis Avatar
    Jamie Lewis

    I find weighted dips to be better for chest and triceps, with more carryover and less impingement issues than the bench.

    And I don't delete comments for a wide variety of reasons, but here, I'm hoping we can convince Rant to kill himself.

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Rant, when was the last time you were laid? I mean by a woman actually interested you and not accepting cash in exchange for services rendered?

    After having read your depression post it makes me seem like you're a pretty empty old man.

    I'd suggest not driving around so much. Just find the nearest parking lot, park, and dispatch of yourself.

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Any proscar side effects? They don't look too fun, though the frequency is low and they mostly resolve over time.

    Too bad there's no Viagragain (from simpsons)
    "Gives you hair up there and what you need down there"

  24. Jamie Lewis Avatar
    Jamie Lewis

    Nope. Never had any sides of any kind.

  25. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Jamie,
    What is you opinion of swapping the bench press for overhead partial squats and doing them 4 times a week?

  26. Rant Avatar
    Rant

    Q: Jamie I’ve been struggling on the best way to come out of the closet. Since you’re obviously a butt pirate I thought you’d be able to help a fellow queer.

    Lance

    PS: I was drawn to your site by all those beefcake pics.

  27. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hey, Rant, why don't you fuck off and go haunt some other places? Your material got old real quick. Are you home whacking off?

  28. Chris Crocker Avatar
    Chris Crocker

    Leave Ranty alooooooooooone! Can't you see he's going through a really hard time? He's depressed! It's a real disease, guys!

  29. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Rant is a depressed, weak, alcoholic. (in his own words) What a great combination of qualities….

  30. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Your dad looks like a cross between Dick Cheney and Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter.

  31. Sexy Bitch Avatar
    Sexy Bitch

    Only his Dad wouldn't need a gun to take you down, anonymous.

  32. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    SNAP!

  33. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The paragraph about not lifting heavy in the morning because the spine is dry is wrong in the mechanism, though right in the advice.
    In the morning the spine is actually hyperhydrated. The extra fluid causes the discs to rise (Adams et al. 1987).
    . After just 30 minutes of waking discs lose 54% of the loss of daily disc height/water content (Reilly et al. 1984) and 90% within the first hour. Early spinal motion is unsafe (Adams and Dolan 1995). Avoiding lumbar flexion in the morning has been shown to reduce back pain symptoms (Snook et al. 1998).

  34. Jamie Lewis Avatar
    Jamie Lewis

    Thanks for the correction! Any chance you want to throw out the book/study title so I can hunt it down?

  35. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Adams MA, Dolan P, Hutton WC. Diurnal variations in the stresses on the lumbar spine. Spine 1987;12(2);130.

    Reilly T, Tynell A, Troup JDG. Circadian variation in the human stature. Chronobiology It 1984;1:121.

  36. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=31647

  37. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hey Jamie what is the reason for the milk thistle?
    Does it help with hair loss as well?
    Is preventing hair loss mostly about reducing DHT?
    What do you think of Saw Palmetto for hair loss?

    http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/

    This guy has quite a few posts on preventing hair loss. The capsaicin sounds sweet… the soy not so much.

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