Plague of Strength

I’ve never been much for either training vids or discussing my own training, as I have discussed at very great length. To reiterate for the noisy, slow motherfuckers in the back- I deliberately avoid writing about my own training because it was never my intention, inference, or suggestion that I should be numbered among the greats. Competing was not an effort to prove that I was, but rather that competitive lifting is fucking easy to dominate if you go hard in the gym at all times and watch your diet. That said, I have come to realize that even the latter bit is more or less unimportant, as basic cardio and a desire to fuel your body should be more than enough to keep you big and lean, without stressing about the details, because all of the turn of the century strongmen were fully capable of doing so even through famines, war, pestilence, and other times of serious privation.

I mean, it only makes sense, right? Humanity couldn’t have achieved what it has if refrigeration and nutrient timing were ultimately critical for muscle growth, and no one could have stood to pose for insane, rad, proto-comic art like the works of Michelangelo, Donatello, other ninja turtle artists etc, if the shit that Youtubers claim about muscle growth is accurate. And my own experience has been quite the contrary- when I stress the details too much I lose aggression and focus in the gym, which reduces my gains. Instead, taking a more common-sense EAT MOAR when needed and EAT LESS when you don’t feel like gorging yourself has worked insanely well for me. Instead of doing a more focused bulk and lean cycle I just eat big meals when I am hungry and ensure I get 40-50g of protein every 3-4 hours.

In the end though, I don’t write about my training much because I have no idea what to write- I blaze on the way to the gym, train like a fucking loon with tiny rest periods with rep schemes that vary from 4-25 reps on machines and 5 or less on barbell movements, and don’t have anything even remotely approaching a training split or scheme. In fact, there are days when all I do is juggle kettlebells, really, because it’s the first exercise I’ve been this excited to do in my entire life.

My training over the last year has been even more heavily based on machines as I dislocated my elbow in April and have been slowly forcing my out-of-place musculature and bones into place with nothing more than my fingers and my sheer force of fucking will. When I injured my arm, the fucking thing knotted up from my trap all the way to my wrist, layering new and more stubborn knots over the existing ones to protect my arm from future injury, which I refused to stop using because a complete lack of insurance has yet to stop me doing a motherfucking thing other than get actual medical treatment for injuries or illnesses.

Training around it led me to do a ton of reverse grip and hammer grip curls (I still can’t quite extend my arm fully, but it was a 3/4 sort of proposition for a month at least, along with tons of ultra light pushdowns to get blood into the area. Eventually, I began to grow bored with endlessly training on machines, and front squats were difficult because my arm was really weak at odd and unexpected angles, so I couldn’t even do decent front squats. Plus, as I released the knots I keep continually uncovering in my abs, my core stability got odd as shit pulled in weird places, hurt for no reason, or was just oddly weak due to seen or unseen knots. In any event, here is the sort of thing I started with before looking around for literally anything else I could do in the gym that would allow me to train around my fucked arm and weird knotting issues.

Inspired in particular by Peter Krylov, who rocked 18.5″ biceps and 13″ forearms in a pre-modern Russia era we most frequently associate with filthy, big-dicked, psychosexual hypervert mysticists than we do with a set of arms worth bragging about in the modern era, I began my shift to kettlebell hammer curls (which were easy on my still-dislocated elbow), though like Peter Krylov, without any real plan in place- just getting in some work. By the time he was 43, Krylov’s training had modified from HARD AND HEAVY ALL THE TIME AND ALL OF THE RECORDS ARE MINE to the following, which kept him at the top of the wrestling and lifting game until his retirement. Seeing the parallel at our initial efforts, it’s unsurprising I find myself falling into the same basic training setup of a minimum of 3-4 hard training and then any number of lighter, fuck-around sessions on top of that, to keep my boyish physique and all of that.

“Last few years among amateurs that I have met, there is a widespread desire to train exclusively for records. This is a wrong approach and moreover damaging. These records are labored. They do not prove strength but wear out the person. First, develop your muscles, achieve their maximum development by training – and then you can without any harm ‘work’ for the records. I am now 43 years old, but I do not feel weaker than when I was 25-year-old young girevik [kettlebell athlete]. The musculature has not deteriorated in quality and did not go down in size. This is a result of rational training.

They say: “image speaks louder than words”. I will give an example of my training day – this can be useful for my brothers in arms of the girevoy sport for developing a personalized training program. After waking up, I take an ‘air bath’ for 10 minutes (standing outside in winter in cold air) and in summer a 10 minute of tanning in the sun. Then I pull rubber (6 different types of rubber), I pull it apart in front of myself, above the head, behind the back, and each arm separately. I do pushups on the floor, full palm or on the fingers, up to 100 reps. Then I run for 10-15 minutes. I do frog jumps: short jumps on the tips of the toes in a deep squat position. I take a shower or rub myself with cold water. Half an hour later, I have breakfast, 2 eggs, 2 glasses of milk and 1 glass of liquid very sweet tea. I go for a walk until dinner. Dinner is at 5 o’clock.

“2 hours after dinner I train with heavy kettlebells; I press or jerk (1 day on, 1 day off) a 5 pud [180lb/kg] barbell standing and lying, 50 times (5 sets of 10). I press 2 pud kettlebells 50 times (same sets/reps). Then I squat with 5 pud barbell full foot on the ground 100 times, and after I walk with a heavy man on my neck back and forth along the ladder. I finish my training with dumbbell movements, I do shoulder exercises with 20 pounds dumbbells, and for biceps, I pull with each arm 2 of such dumbbells together. Last two years I train with weights after dinner 3 times a week (before used to be daily), and the rest of the days this hour I spend wrestling and doing ‘nelsons’ (wrestling exercise) – I need it as a wrestler.

After training, I take a shower and go for a walk. When I was training ‘for records’, I always did singles with very moderate weight: 2 arms 4.5 poods [73kg/163lb], 1 arm – 3 poods [48 kg/108lb]. I would work with heavy weights only once a week when I would attempt to set a record. 

This very careful and moderate training approach is what allowed me to maintain strength and muscles, even though as an old-time circus athlete I had to “work’ several times performing with very heavy weights and pulling off the most difficult tricks. As far as my diet regime, I used to eat a lot of meat before, now I mostly hit vegetables and fruit and consider it to be healthier. I especially like baked (shepherd style) potatoes – filling and healthy meal. I don’t drink vodka or beer, but allow myself a small glass of light wine during dinner. I do not smoke at all” (Source).

Now, this will come as a shock to you, but when I read about kettlebell juggling in 19th century Russia, at no point did I google a video- it genuinely never occurred to me. I figured I would just go into the gym and fuck around, as mankind has done since time immemorial. I love doing hammer curls with kettlebells, as I’ve mentioned, so I decided to build from there- I have never been able to juggle a motherfucking thing except my own bizarre expectations for myself. After looking at this pic of Krylov’s inspiration, Emil Voss, I knew I had to start with this shit, because his oversized arms would catch my eye on the street even now, due to what a frail man he was otherwise.

Having ignored my own advice to you (my generation couldn’t give a fuck less about getting lifting directions), I went into the gym and started fucking around, and the following couple of videos are a bit of the journey as it’s gone thus far.

And there you have it- my journey into kettlebell juggling, driven by a combination of unassailable historical support and the boredom that inevitably arises out of training around an injury. If you’re interested about the knotting shit (as many of you seem to be), here’s a short video in which I’m showing myself digging out ab knots with my finger. As I am weirdly embarrassed by the entire thing (you’ll note my historical lack of videos, due almost entirely to my ab situation), I am not exactly lively in this video.

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