Plague of Strength

So I can tell people, “I visit the Jim several times a day!”

I figured that since people are constantly asking Jamie for training logs, and because he absolutely despising tracking his training, you might want to see what sort of shit he occasionally gets up to. If you are looking for any kind of a “program” to copy, however, this is probably not going to be your jam. Why? Because everyone babbles about the same couple lifts, and rep schemes, and #gainz and pastel bro-pris joggers, and that is boring… and Jamie never tracks a single rep, set, or weight, so unless we filmed every session there’d be no way to give you what you want anyway.

So what is the weird shit Jamie does when training?

Well, for one of the days last week it was hack deadlifts, super heavy shrugs, and Max Grip rows, with one of Jamie’s international readers.

Dejon’s been reading Jamie’s shit for the better part of a decade, is awesome, and flew half way around the world to lift with us. If I’m honest, he actually flew half way around the world from China to visit his family, but while he was here, he made a trip down to lift with us then eat a ridiculous amount to buffalo wings.

Anyway; if you, like me, have never heard of a hack deadlift… THIS is a Hack Deadlift.

Sadly, there are a limited number of photos from the Hack Deadlift session. People tend to get squirrelly when there are cameras pointed at them and they are hauling heavy shit. Plus, I forgot my spiffy pro camera and was doing my own workout, because I was being an antisocial little shit.

So what you get instead are pics of Jamie standing around, watching Dejon do an exercise Jamie ranks right up there with hemmorhagic fevers and flesh eating viruses. I figured you’d want info about the session from the two guys who trained, so here’s a quick Q and A about their session.

Q: What are your thoughts on getting to lift with one of your long time readers? I know you have done Hack Deadlifts before so it wasn’t a new random lift off the “Lift List” for you. But you have been lifting heavier and more aggressively over the past year. What are your thoughts on the Hack Deadlift now, verses when you did them before? 

A: I’ve always enjoyed lifting with readers. I’ve had people fly out to lift on their birthdays and then go party, people just randomly pop in when they know I’m lifting, and people just meet me when they’re in town. It’s ranged from the notably awkward to awesome, but I figure even the weirdest experiences make for hilarious stories afterward. And when I say weirdest, in one instance the chick I was dating at the time was convinced we were going to end up in their basement getting slowly fucked to death and made into a skin blanket or some shit, haha.

No matter how awkward it’s been in certain cases, it’s always been a good time, and usually everyone’s trying to put on a show, so we have good lifts. Dejon tore it the fuck up when we trained, which was cool. He also insisted on doing Hack Deads, which only succeeded in ripping the skin off my hamstrings, bruising my ass, and making my left pec cramp so badly I almost tore it. Unless you utterly lack hamstrings and glutes, that is a stupid, stupid lift.

I’d trained hack pulls in the past, and I hated them then almost as much as I do now By the way, I’ve no idea why people insist on calling them squats, since they’re just a stupid version of the deadlift.

In the past, I simply thought they were stupid. Having shorn all of the skin off all my hamstrings in a futile attempt to pull a respectable weight, I’d like to fight George Hackenschmidt to the death for inventing it, and intend to find and piss on his grave. I think your ability to hack dead is inversely proportional to your ability to squat.

Dejon was kind enough to humor me and answer a barrage questions from half a world away about his Planes, Trains and Automobiles journey to come hang out with us.

Q: I know we didn’t get to talk much while you were here, due in part to me being an antisocial shit (I write a LOT, but I don’t generally speak much to people I don’t know), but also because you came a couple thousand miles to lift with Jamie, so I wanted to give you guys a chance to hang out. So, tell us a little about yourself? You came from China to come lift with Jamie. How did a guy from Dirty Jerzy end up in China? How long have you been lifting and how did you get into it? How long have you been a reader? And most importantly because I am SUPER food motivated, what the fuck is your death row meal?

A: It’s all good, Tara. I gotta give you your proper respects for sitting there for hours while Jamie and I swarmed around way too many topics without pause. I’m dying to hear more stories about the Dudley Boyz when I’m back in town. Shit sounds like a comedy blockbuster.

I’m originally from the Newark area but I grew up in the surrounding suburbs. I lived there for about 25 years before retreating to China and permanently avoiding adulthood and responsibilities. So far, I don’t regret leaving.

I just felt bored. There’s only so much to do in NJ. I wish I had a really deep reason for moving abroad. I just wanted to get out of NJ for a while and see some other part of the world. China made the most sense once I looked at cost of living, quality of life, and wages. It’s hard to beat.

I’ve been lifting somewhere around 6 years. I got into it mainly to help manage stress when I was working a customer service job. Being yelled at by rich people all day does wonders for your motivation to hit the gym. I started to see some progress and that created a cool feedback loop that sustains me to this day. I tend to dislike taking days off and have to schedule and stick to them.

I actually started reading a lot Jamie’s stuff after seeing his amusing battles on reddit. I enjoyed watching him deftly handle the weak autists while boasting abs and crazy totals.

His posts always boiled down to “shut the fuck up and lift weights” and that’s really all that needs to be said. Guys have taken the fun out of lifting and made it into this goofy fad. It’s a shame.

I guess Plague of Strength/Chaos and Pain always stuck with me because I find a lot of the online fitness and bodybuilding communities to be complete trash. I like being able to click on any month or year of Jamie’s writing and walk away with something useful, delicious or pornographic. You really can’t go wrong with any of the three.

I’ll eat anything that involves lamb, open flames and lots of cumin. These days my guilty pleasure involves Chinese BBQ’d lamb skewers and a side of kimchi or some other pickled vegetable. That or a steak. I’ve got plebeian tastes really. As long it’s heaps of meat I really don’t give a shit.

Q: You got to choose our Lift of the Week. What brought about the selection of a Hack Deadlift? Aside from the obvious amusement of getting to see someone who is about as flexible as an oak tree fold themselves into a pretzel?

A: I picked it specifically to see if I could get Jamie to cop out and make up excuses. To his credit he did not.

I actually found out about it reading some old school literature. It looked like a fun variation that might get more quad involvement. It really does fuck all for my quads but I enjoy doing it. I’ve rarely met anyone who hears “hack deadlifts” and thinks of the barbell variation. I’ve hit a lot of people with that hack deadlift curveball lately. Love seeing people sit down over the barbell and then go “nope.”

Plus, it’s a nice departure from the usual squat, bench, deadlift, press drudgery. I’ll do them all but sometimes it’s fun to fuck around with something new and see if it sticks.

| think the best physiques are built by feel, not cookie cutter bullshit. Sometimes you just need to work an exercise into your regimen for a while and see what it does. I noticed that the hack deadlift added some extra meat in places and I stuck with it.

Q: Admittedly, we weren’t able to bust out the full virgin sacrifice; torturing man-pri wearing, leg day avoiding “natty” bros; while snorting pre-workout off the asses of lithe yoga moms shindig we would have liked, due to our incredibly bougie gym frowning down on blood on the lifting platforms. But what was it like lifting with someone who is viewed as one of the biggest lunatics in strength sports, especially after reading his shit and talking to him for years?

A: I had a good time watching Jamie struggle to get the weight over his hamstrings during the Hack Deads. i should have gotten a video of it. Did you? (Sadly, I did not)

I was disappointed with the lack of porn, vomiting and sacrifices, though.

On the real, though, Jamie’s fun as hell to train with. A good training partner is priceless.

Jamie’s pretty approachable in my experience. I used to message him way back about heavy metal actually. I don’t think we ever talked lifting or anything for a long time. I’m a pretty diehard metal fan so I always like getting new bands off people.

As far as the training went Jamie’s got a good eye for how hard to push someone without making them feel like it’s a huge challenge. I would have never tried 500+ lb. shrugs on my own. I didn’t even know I could do that. I felt like I could do anything after that.

I’m certain that I’d weigh another 20 pounds at 8% bodyfat if I trained with Jamie a few times a week for a few months.

Q: I want to talk about the heavy shrugs you did with Jamie… What was your shrug PR previous to those 545 lb lifts? What was it like shrugging a weight that made your legs shake? Has Jamie’s peer pressure method of egging people on to try heavier weights changed anything about how you train since then?

A: Honestly though, Jamie putting up 800+ pounds on a shrug was nuts too. I told some friends about the weight and they’re all calling bullshit on that, but what can you do?That was awesome.

I tend to find my traps lag behind the rest of my upper body, so I was happy to have Trapicus Decimus Jamie hit me with some heavy, heavy weight.

Throughout my 6 years of training I never had a consistent training partner so I missed out on being heckled into going way heavier than normal. I’ve never shrugged anything over 315 pounds, so going up to 545 was a shock to my system. I’m not joking when I say that my abs, traps and glutes were sore for nearly a week after. I love that shit, though. It’s what training is all about at its core: presenting your body with brutal weight and moving it.

Now that I’m back in China I’ve been pushing myself to pick weights before I go in and then force my way through it. it’s a departure from my usual method but it’s made things more fun.

Conceptually one thing I picked up on was that training should reflect the individual. I can see how Jamie’s training style expresses who Jamie is. He looks like he trains the way he says he does. He talks a ton of shit but also has a thick neck so I gotta give him some respect there.

Q: In closing, I want to talk about one of my personal FAVORITE things in the world… Maximum Advantage Grip bar rows. What did you think? Weird? Awesome? I am an idiot for loving those things?

I loved it. It seems like another gym essential. It really does what it says which is cut down on grip fatigue. I’m back in China and hunting for a replica but I’ll probably have to just shell out for a real one and have it shipped.

Final Thoughts

One of these days, I may try the Hack Deadlift. But Jamie literally has a list of obscure lifts to try, and some sound WAY more fun than others. I am, however, looking forward to getting to lift with more friends of the blog, and hear more stories of different locals. Ok, and see people figure out new ways to torture Jamie.

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