While I continue to plod through the next installment of the running blogs (which is fun because I’m trying to counter arguments before they’re posted, but is intensely time consuming), I thought you fuckers might be interested by the following collegiate rower.  He managed to do what almost anybody on the internet would claim is completely impossible- he gained muscle, increased his maximal strength, improved his athletic performance, AND increased his aerobic activity, all at the same time.  When he first emailed me, I though the kid was completely batshit crazy.  As it turns out, he is.

Having had a shitload of people email me for detailed advice and then drop off the face of the Earth, I had him pegged for your average high schooler who intended to ask a shitload of questions, put none of what you told him into practice, and basically do his generation proud by sucking like none who had gone before him.  I was wrong.  I gave him some broad outlines for advice, rather than the detailed shit I had in the past, and answered periodic questions regarding diet and training as they popped up.  Will took the open-source concept to heart with that, and fashioned for himself a program that worked for him and helped him achieve his goals, tweaking it as he went to keep improving.

First things first, Will’s not a strength athlete, powerlifter, or anything resembling a person who sits around waiting for his turn in the rack.  Instead, he’s an 18 year old rower who spent a year busting his ass in the gym to get stronger while at the same time ROWING 2 hours a day.  Nor was he a neophyte to lifting.  That he’d at least lifted some prior to starting CnP is evident when you look at his before pics- the kid was skinny, but he was ripped to fucking shreds.

That’s right- he gained 20 lbs of rip in one year, put 130 lbs on his deadlift, saw his BTN go up 55 lbs, gained a 70 lbs on his clean, and lost an inch on his waist.  Fucking crazy.  

145 lbs of nothing but abs when he started.

His year looked like this:

February-May
2 hour rowing practice 5 times per week, races every 3-4 weeks. Rowed lightweight, had to stay <155. Weighed in to Regionals at 154, took 2nd in single and 2V double. My 2,000 meter time in the single decreased by 30 seconds (8:51 to 8:21) from the beginning of April to the middle of May. Bench 235, Squat 230, Deadlift 345 as of May. Diet was Paleo with 2 cheats.

June-September
This was a shitty summer due to a leg injury in early that stopped me from lifting heavy until around mid-August. My lifts improved little, as I had to go light for that whole time.

September to December
Back to CNP basics during this time, starting at a weight of about 152. 5 days per week lifting going push/pull and squat splits. I also had lacrosse practice 3 days per week until December. Bench 245, Squat 270, Deadlift 375 as of December.  Diet during this time was carb-cycling (3 days high carb/low fat, 4 days Paleo, 1 cheat). 

January to Present
Lacrosse season has me doing a lot of running (3 days practice, 1 day conditioning) so I had to switch to a lifting schedule that would not result in debilitating leg cramps during practice. Since the beginning of January I’ve been following Defranco’s WS4SB with the occasional squat or deadlift fiesta thrown in to appease the heavy demons.  

Now.

How’d he do it?  Here’s how:

During my CNP prime I’d go on a push+pull / squat split 5 days a week. Typically the 15×1, 12×2, 10×3 rep scheme with CNP-approved lifts. I’d throw in a 30-rep squat every month or so and I fucking loved that squat pyramid workout that you promoted. Now I’m doing Defranco’s WS4SB program for in-season and I plan on doing a 6 week cycle of German Volume Training just to change things up once my season is over before I go back to CNP until my season starts again in the fall. 
I actually did Paleo with 2 cheats windows per week throughout rowing season, which makes my 10 gained pounds slightly more amazing. In hindsight, I should have gone with something more like carb-backloading (which is what I’m doing now) because the amount of cardio that I was doing/currently do makes fat gain nearly impossible. 
— editor’s note.  He and I discussed this as he was going, and I suggested that he add in some carbs.  I’d briefly skimmed Cordain’s Paleo for Athletes book, which dealt solely with endurance athletes, and Cordain was big on adding carbs.
On my Paleo days I would hit around 3-4500 cals, up to 6-7000 on cheat days. Now I get about 4-5000 a day and eat the majority of my 4-6 meals out of my bachelor bowl. 
Sample Paleo Day
5:30–Pre-workout shake (25g whey isolate)
Lift or Erg
7:00–3-4 eggs, some sort of PWO starch
10:00–Tuna fish or more eggs
12:00–Beef, chicken (fucking wings, sometimes thighs), or sausage with kale or spinach
2:30–Pre-rowing shake (25g whey isolate)
5:30–Large meal, sometimes PWO starch, always about 1/2 pound of meat and leafy green vegetables
7:30–Leftovers from that meal
9:00–Apple and peanut butter snack
10:00–Shake: 25g egg protein, peanut butter, banana blended
The “bachelor bowl”.
Sample day of eating now
7:00 Meal 1: 4-5 eggs, sausage, coffee

9:00 Snack 1: Mixed nuts

11:30 Meal 2: Dining hall food, generally sandwiches and large salad, etc.
1:45 Pre-workout shake of 25g whey concentrate
2:00 Lift
3:00 Post-workout shake of 25g whey concentrate, 60g waxy maize
5:00 Meal 3: 1/2 pound of pasta with beef or chicken or 2 cups brown rice with beef or chicken
6:30 Practice
9:00 Post-practice shake of 25g whey concentrate, 30g waxy maize
10:00 Meal 4: More pasta/rice and beef/chicken, mixed berries
11:00 Snack 2: Apple and peanut butter or 30g Myofusion shake
On non-practice days I go higher on vegetables (kale, broccoli) during the day simply because I have more time to prepare them. My practice days also happen to be the days when I’m at school from 8-2 and then lifting until 3 so that leaves little time to start sautéing. 
Clearly should have been eating more, but my school schedule made it difficult and I didn’t have the same attitude toward stuffing food down that I do now. Also, fuck waking up that early to train. My energy and weights increased substantially once I pushed that back to either 8am or (now) 2pm. My summer job required me to walk all day but I actually ended up eating more because I could snack on nuts and stuff constantly before and after lunch break, which would generally be copious amounts of wings and beef with kale (reheated in the microwave, much to my co-workers’ delight).
I think one of the mistakes that I made during rowing was not doing enough sets. I went for weight over sets and did 6x3x85-90% when 10x3x80-85% or 15x1x90% instead of 8-10x1x95% probably would have led to greater size gains. That being said, I weighed into Regionals at an otter-like 153.5, so I didn’t have much room to gain anyway. 
One of the greatest benefits that I got from CNP is confidence. Do 15-20 singles with a compound exercise like squat or dead week after week and nothing will phase you physically. I took Kyokoshin karate for a few years, and they have a saying that I paraphrased and adapted to lifting. When I’m on the field, or when I was sitting at the start line of a race, I had unmatchable confidence compared to my opponents because I walk, row, run, and carry myself with the confidence of over 1000 squats and several hundred deadlifts. You can’t say the same about cable flies and drop sets.
Kyokushin is the shit.

Q:  That’s fucking badass, man.  The total volume of work you were doing is insane, and it’s not often that endurance athletes see a rise in ME strength with a concordant rise in bodyweight while losing fat.  Crazy.
What got you interested in training like this, anyway?  

A:  I was pissed. For some reason I had bought into Pete Fucking Sisco’s “Static Contraction” program and wasted a month of training doing low-volume partials. Toward the end of January I was looking down the barrel of my last rowing season and a high-school project and somehow came across your blog online. I decided that it was the furthest thing possible from Static Contraction and therefore must be good. That was about when I emailed you about my senior project, which was to make myself a guinea pig for CNP on a 5 month scale and meticulously record progress, etc, and then present it to a board of teachers. While they may have been less than enthusiastic about the fact that one of my sources included a Rwandan genocide picture, I passed that project (ad-libbed presentation) with flying colors.  
You mean like this?  Genocide is always good for a laugh.
Q:  I found Cisco and Little’s info to be good for anecdotal information and for tweaking a workout, but like you said, it’s nothing around which one should structure a program.  Did you see an improvement in your overall sport performance?
A:  I spent my rowing season in the single-shell (2 oars, one person) and the double (2 oars each, two people). I wish I had gotten a better stat on this, but just from the beginning of April to the end of May, my time in the single improved from an 8:51 2k to an 8:21 2k, which put me in 2nd place at Junior Regionals. I have just started playing defense in lacrosse and in my short time on the field I have found that I have no problem putting guys who are bigger than me on the ground. 
Q:  What the fuck do you have against training calves?  You do realize bigger calves will likely make you faster, right?  They won’t increase drag or overall wind resistance, if that’s what you thought.  
A:  Not everyone began doing calf-raises and bench the second they got in a weight room.  I’ve been starting to get on the calves, though. 

Q:  It was weighted dips, fucker.  Get it right.  Anyway, your pulls went way the fuck up, which is interesting given the fact that you were rowing 2 hours a day.  Do you think that helped or hindered your pulling progress?
A:  I’d say that the rowing can’t have hindered my pull, but it probably didn’t help it much either. Your range of back motion is pretty low compared to a dead and the load is relatively light. So it may have had a small effect, but I’d attribute the progress more to heavy singles, heavy shrugging, and squats than anything else. The bulk of my progress on deadlift also came after my rowing season had ended (345-405). 
Q: Any other random shit to add?
A:  Yeah. My brother is a wrestler and has been doing CNP for the last few months and texted me yesterday to inform me that he (at weight 112), pulled 300 and shit his pants in the progress. If he hadn’t been pulling almost 2.7xbw I would have given him shit for that (pun intended), but there’s another testament to heavy singles and triples for deadlifts.

112 lbers I want to wrestle.
On another note related to your running blog, I absolutely abhor any running other than sprints, which are now a large part of my life. Even then, anytime someone suggests that we run a 400 or something in lacrosse, my response is typically “If I ever have to run the ball 400 yards to the goal, just fucking sub me out.”

So, there you have it.  In spite of the fact that every slack-jawed bitch on the internet will continuously and vehemently assert that you cannot get lean and strong at the same time, or train for cardio and strength simultaneously, it appears that you can, provided you bust your fucking ass inside out, lift heavy, and diet hard.

Surprised?  I’m not.

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