Alex Zinchenko's Blog

In a previous article, I have mentioned that I got interested in martial arts. Any martial art besides being an ‘art’ is definitely a solid collectionof cool and useful skills. I realizedthat strength training and martial arts compliment each other very well, and by ignoring one or another, you are missing the whole package. Perseverance in both of these forms of training will most likely turn you into an unstoppable machine physically and mentally.

[NOTE: Of course, you should mix both stren...

So this title may sound somewhat misleading and rather close to sacrilege taking into account that Rough Strength‘s primary theme of interest is strength and everything related to it, but there is a reason behind this wording. Anyway, let me explain myself a little bit before you start throwing rotten food at me. First of all, I assume that you are one of the people who are dedicated to strength training, not an excuse-making lard-ass. You have been training for a while, and your body may have sent you subtle signals that you train too much or too hard. You know, pains here and there, injuries, etc. You may have interpreted these signals right, but you may be scared to do less strength training because you fear to lose your precious gains. Well, the information below should provide you with a possible solution. But before we dig into the cool stuff, you should refresh this article in your memory, because this is kind of a sequel.

My Idea

Doing strength training for a decent time, you probably experienced not only its upsides but also downsides: overtraining, injuries, monotony, nervous system burnouts, etc. At some point, you might have learned how to deal with these downsides, although most likely you might have got into a trap of thinking this stuff is inevitable. While it IS somewhat inevitable, what if you could dramatically decrease the downsides of strength training?

Unless you have a ton of liabilities, you are probably a strength training junkie just like me. Once you experience the taste of a solid PR, you become hooked. You think about your training a lot, and most likely you want to train more. However, the sad reality is that the more you train, the more you should tame yourself and the more you should be precise about your training variables (volume, intensity, frequency). The more you do strength training, the more injuries you get, the more you overtrain, etc. Of course, playing with numbers and doing deloads are viable options for training sustainability, but they require serious self-control, and they do not always work.

[TIP: If you still want to do lots of pure strength training, start thinking in terms of weekly progression. Instead of using more and more intensity every workout, look at your microcycle as a whole. Plan an attainable progression for a whole week. For example:

Week’s assignment:

Add 6 reps to pushing exercises
Add 2.5 kg to pulling exercises
Add 6 reps to leg exercises

Then add the planned amount in any appropriate workout. If you do 3 full-body workouts per week, then you may add 2 reps to a pushing exercise in every workout, or you may add 6 reps in one. Of course, that’s just a hypothetical example. Practical application of this method is highly situational, and you will need to use your brains to get the most out of it]

In “Strength VS Skill Training” article, I have shared with you a viable option for making progress faster while doing more focused strength training and more freestyle skill work. So why don’t we take it a step further? What if we can endure more work? How to implement this? What will happen to your body composition as a result? Well, these questions subconsciously bothered me for a long time, and I seem to find an answer: training variety.

My Story

Everything started with my interest in martial arts. I was quite cold in regards to them until recently. I have no idea why I got interested, but I guess a martial art is a badass skill to have in your arsenal (especially for a skill junkie like me). There was only one problem – I had already been doing strength training 3 times per week, bodyweight skill work 3-4 times per week, and skateboarding 2-3 times per week. There was basically no room for martial arts. Anyway, I decided to take a week off from everything and to spend it learning the new stuff.

I was lucky enough to find a good dojo right from the start. At first, training sessions were pretty demanding skill- and endurance-wise because I was not used to training for 2 hours straight in a non-stop fashion, but with time, the intensity and tempo became more manageable. Anyway, I spent that week having 3 martial art training sessions, each 2 hours long.

The next week I decided to add back only 2 full-body strength training sessions, which turned out to be perfectly enough. I concentrated on big compound moves and nothing else. Here is the program that I came up with:

Day 1

A) Weighted Dips – 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps

B) Sumo Deadlifts – 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps

C) Weighted Neutral-Grip Chin-Ups – 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps

Day 2 & 3 – Off

Day 4

A) Incline Dumbbell Presses – 3-5 sets of 3-6 reps

B) Back Squats – 3-5 sets of 8-10

C) Front Levers/Front Lever Raises – 3-5 sets (I use different rep schemes here)

Day 5, 6 & 7 – Off

NOTE: By “Off” I mean no strength training. I do skill/endurance work on those days

Of course, at first, my strength was down because of muscle fatigue from other training, but it started to climb up fast once the adaptation period was over. Additionally, I seem to feel way fresher and stronger doing only two strength sessions per week.

The week after that I decided to bring back the bodyweight skill work. I used weekly volume assignments for this and they did their job brilliantly. Then I added back 2-3 skateboarding sessions per week.

The main question you have to ask me at this point is how the fuck can I manage that much training volume without overtraining? The answer is variety and calories. All the training I do at the moment (approximately 12-15 hours per week) develops quite different performance qualities of my body. Additionally, I eat 3200-3300 calories per day (which is well above my maintenance) to support my lifestyle.

The Results

Is it necessary to train this much? If you have only 3-4 hours per week to train, then no. Work with what you have. However, If you have some spare time, let me share the benefits of training this much:

I still have the golfer’s elbow condition, but due to less strength training and more variety, it is way closer to healing than at any other time in the past;
I’ve finally experienced that G-Flux effect. I can assure you that it is real. Basically, this theory states that a person who spends and eats more calories will have a better body composition, than a person who spends and eats less. For example, a trainee who spends and consumes 3000 calories per day will have less fat and more muscle than a trainee who spends and consumes 2500 calories daily;
My strength training programming have improved because I focused only on big compound moves;
My conditioning improved BIG TIME. Endurance work is fucking pain in the ass for me. I would rather do more strength training than run any day of any week. However, if you train in a group, then you have no other choice than to endure all the pain because you’re not a pussy (that’s a good tip for anything you hate to do; make it competitive).
Martial arts training is particularly cool because of this sense of well-being, confidence, and calmness that you earn. It seems that both strength and martial arts training are vital in developing a resilient and tough mind and body. They go hand in hand and are parts of the same puzzle.
Finally, having less time for something makes you value it more.

So What Do I Propose?

Basically, I encourage you to introduce more variety to your training. Think of any skill you always wanted to develop but haven’t started due to strength training taking all the time and energy. For example, rock climbing or tumbling, or surfing, or parkour, etc. Feel free to start as soon as possible, and do not worry about your gains. Despite what you might have heard, endurance training doesn’t kill your muscle mass; serious calorie deficit does.

So here is a blueprint to this training approach:

Differentiate strength training and skill/endurance work
Keep strength training at low-to-moderate volume, high intensity, and moderate frequency
Add as much skill/endurance work as you want/can handle
Back up this amount of work with calories
Enjoy improved performance, fat loss, health, sense of well-being, etc.

In case you wonder, my current training week looks like this:

Monday – Martial Arts

Tuesday – Skateboarding

Wednesday – Martial Arts

Thursday – Strength Training

Friday – Martial Arts

Saturday – Skateboarding

Sunday – Strength Training

Everyday or Anytime I Feel Like It – Bodyweight Skill Work, Stretching, and additional Skateboarding

Who Is This Technique For?

Of course, this solution is not for everybody. If you are a competing athlete who requires tons of strength training, then training variety may not and probably should not be your first priority. However, if you have no plans for winning medals, breaking world records, and stuff, then I invite you to try it and decide for yourself whether this is worth the trouble.

Can You Just Do More Strength Training Instead?

I wish I could answer “yes”, but it is “no”. If you do more strength training than your body can handle, you will most certainly injure yourself.

Closing Thoughts

I know that this smells like CrossFit, but anyway, I encourage you to broaden your horizons. This stuff works, and it will make you a priceless gift. Thanks for reading.

Play rough!

Alex

P.S. I’m not the only one who came to such a conclusion. Check this video out:

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

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Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

Rough Strength Music Recommendation:

The post How You Can Benefit from Doing Less Strength Training appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.

If you are “blessed” with an average-to-slow metabolism like me and the majority of the Earth’s population, then you probably thought about getting ripped at least once in your life. Luckily, you can easily find copious volumes of information on fat loss out there. Several mouse clicks and a simple Google-search separate you from myriads of books and articles that will teach you how to eat right, how to count calories and macros, etc. The whole gamut of YouTube gurus will eagerly explain in detail the principles of fat loss basically repeating the good old rules:

If you eat more calories than you spend, then you gain weight
If you eat less than maintenance, you lose it
Your body composition is highly dependent on your macronutrient ratios

However, what if you have already reached your fat loss goal? Or what if your metabolism have slowed down due to aggressive dieting? The trick that can solve these issues is called reverse dieting. I haven’t found a simple and comprehensive article on this subject, so here is my attempt to create it.

What Is Reverse Dieting?

Well, it is literally dieting in reverse: instead of slowly cutting your daily/weekly calories, you will gradually add them. When should you apply this nutritional strategy? First of all, it is useful for feeding yourself back into your maintenance calories while minimizing fat gain after your fat loss phase is over. You should understand that our body always strives for homeostasis. The more you deprive it of calories, the more your body will prime itself for weight gain. As with anything in life, your impatience will be punished. If you add too much calories too soon, or if you change your daily meal plan drastically calorie- and macronutrient-wise, then you will regain substantial amounts of fat. So, instead of taking a fool’s route, you can train your patience a little bit more and implement reverse dieting approach.

Secondly, reverse dieting is a great cure for slowed down metabolism. You may have been in a situation when you cut your calories too much too soon and as a result, you feel lethargic all the time. Your energy levels are low, and you feel like an old man trying to stand up from his chair during squats with an empty bar. In the worst case, your blood pressure is low, you experience constant headaches, and you can fall unconscious easily. So, instead of blaming your diet for your mistakes and going back to your old see-food-eat-food nutrition approach (gaining even more fat than you had), you can implement reverse dieting and feel good again while possibly burning some fat.

Finally, it was a pleasant surprise for me that adding calories gradually is effective not only for minimizing fat gain, but for burning some fat too. This may sound counter-intuitive and akin to some sort of voodoo magic, but it is a fact. To prove my words, let me give you a screen shot of MyFitnessPal bodyweight chart of yours truly:

With a red arrow, I’ve marked a point when I started gradually increasing calories on a weekly basis. If you are attentive enough, you will notice that despite the fact that I was eating more and more, I was still slowly losing bodyweight while getting leaner and leaner. In case you are wondering, I was consuming 3000 calories daily in the last week of this chart. Interestingly, I started this fat loss phase with 2600 calories daily. I will leave all the conclusion-making to you here.

How to Implement Reverse Dieting?

I have come across several approaches to reverse dieting on the Interwebs. The one I’ve implemented with success is this one:

Say, you are finished with your fat loss phase at 2400 calories per day;
Add 100 calories to your daily number and be there for a week (2500 calories per day in this case);
Then add another 100 calories and stay there for another week (2600 calories per day in this case);
Then you can use 150-calorie increments until you reach your maintenance (again, stay with your number at least for a week; in this case, 2750 calories per day for a week, then 2900 calories per day for a week, etc.);
If your goal is muscle gain, then you can proceed with 150-calorie increments until you settle at the weight-gain speed of 0.5-1 kg per month.

Additional Points

Precision

Any calorie-counting approach will work only if you are precise with your numbers. Yes, this means taking EVERYTHING into account. This will require discipline, but the results are worth the trouble. Besides, once calorie counting becomes a habit, it takes less than 5 minutes per day and can give you some sort of wicked pleasure (if you know what I mean).

Cheat days/meals

I would suggest you to stick with one cheat meal per week. This will give you optimal results. However, during the fat loss phase pictured above I have done some crazy stuff like several cheat days in a row. In fact, let me show you another screen shot and you will see how my body responded:

With red arrows, I’ve marked what happened to my bodyweight after those cheat days. As you can see, if you want a smooth fat loss experience, having several cheat days in a row may be not the best idea. Anyway, it seems that my activity regimen was so cruel, that those cheat days made no difference in a long run.

Weekly calories/macros

Finally, if you just can’t stick to a set-in-stone daily calorie number for some reason, or making your life complex brings you some sort of perverted enjoyment, then you should concentrate on your weekly calories and macros instead of daily. This way you will receive an illusion of freedom while still making those gainz.

Closing Thoughts

Reverse dieting is a handy little tool in your nutrition arsenal. Use it to squeeze everything you can out of your fat loss phase. Thanks for reading.

Play rough!

Oknehcniz Xela

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

Do you have any thoughts? Let’s chat in comments.

If you want to receive more posts like this right to your e-mail, subscribe to the awesome newsletter here:

First name *

Email *

And don’t forget about RSS Feed, Facebook page and Twitter.

Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

Rough Strength Music Recommendation:

The post Reverse Dieting: The Secret to Effective Fat Loss appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.

Have you noticed the domination of scientific research in modern strength training? It is trendy and dandy (and more importantly, marketable) to be ‘scientifically proven’ or ‘backed up by research’ nowadays. The general reading public readily accepts this, and everybody seems to feel the need to get scientific. However, despite the initially positive character of the trend, there might be a downside to it.

What Downside?

First of all, I absolutely love science and the scientific approach. People obviously wouldn’t be where we are if there were no science. To put it straight, let me quote Richard Dawkins:

“Science is interesting, and if you don’t agree, you can fuck off.”

Well, this quote might not suit my train of thought the best in this case, but it is indisputably awesome and deserves to be a preposterous adornment for the article.

Anyway, let me get to the point. The rise of awareness regarding strength training and nutritional scientific research has given the opportunity for geeks and nerds to blossom and to market their research-based ideas as “smart training” (kindly disregarding anything else). There is nothing completely wrong with this. Everybody does his own ‘thang’. However, the words “scientific” and “research” often create an illusion that it is the only way. And in regards to strength training, the reality can’t be further from truth.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

– I worked and trained with several powerlifting and bodybuilding pros here in Ukraine. I can assure you that they have not read any studies during their training careers, and this has not had any influence on their progress and achievements whatsoever. On the other hand, I haven’t met people with more determination and love for hard work.

– Look at old-school lifters like Pyotr Kryloff or Arthur Saxon. Lots of their strength feats are not surpassed even today. Again, there was no scientific research at that time.

These facts show us that the massive obsession with studies we see nowadays is at least non-essential. Furthermore, instead of thumbing the Pubmed articles all day long, lots of trainees could spend more time actually training. In the end, if your goal is to lift more, the amount of research you absorbed means nothing if you don’t lift more. If your goal is to have bigger biceps, knowing all the biceps-growing studies in alphabetical order means nothing if your biceps doesn’t actually grow.

How to Deal with Research the Scientific Way

Educating yourself with research can be a pretty useful thing though. However, you need to approach it right. Let me give you a blueprint for dealing with studies with class:

1. First of all, know the rules of science. Here is a quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson (I guess, he knows a thing or two about science):

– Question authority. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.

– Think for yourself. Question yourself. Don’t believe anything just because you want to. Believing something doesn’t make it so.

– Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment. If a favorite idea fails a well-designed test, it’s wrong. Get over it.

– Follow the evidence wherever it leads. If you have no evidence, reserve judgment.

And perhaps the most important rule of all…

– Remember: you could be wrong. Even the best scientists have been wrong about some things. Newton, Einstein, and every other great scientist in history — they all made mistakes. Of course they did. They were human.

2. In other words, don’t blindly accept everything you’ve been told. Test the ideas, be precise in execution, analyze the results, accept what is useful and discard what is useless.

3. Take any research results with a pinch of salt and a healthy dose of skepticism. Know that everybody is different. There still might be a possibility that your body will respond differently comparing to any study results. Value empirical evidence the most.

4. Do not forget to apply common sense. If something sounds too good to be true, most likely it is false.

5. Explore the roots of the research. For example, you might have heard that some studies are sponsored by nutrition companies. How can you be sure about the results of such a study?

6. Embrace simplicity. Simple stuff will always outperform overly sophisticated things.

Theory VS Practice

Practice without theory is like driving on a road with pot holes. Yes, you will swear constantly, and it will take you more time to get from point A to point B comparing to a smooth road, but you will still make it (if you possess at least basic analytical skills). Theory without practice, on the other hand, is like buying a map, but never really going anywhere.

You can be the smartest ass in terms of theory, but if you don’t put money where your mouth is, then you are just another pussy theorist and your words have no value whatsoever.

Closing Thoughts

So, is scientific research useless? Hell-fucking-no. It can be pretty damn useful, and it can save you lots of time, money, and effort. However, it means nothing without application, and it definitely means nothing if your practical experience shows that it is wrong. Finally, it is always better to go out there, do something, and get some sort of results than endlessly exploring theory and doing nothing. That’s it. Thanks for reading.

Play rough!

Alex “Old-School” Zinchenko

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

Do you have any thoughts? Let’s chat in comments.

If you want to receive more posts like this right to your e-mail, subscribe to the awesome newsletter here:

First name *

Email *

And don’t forget about RSS Feed, Facebook page and Twitter.

Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

Rough Strength Music Recommendation:

The post Strength Training and Science appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.

There is a whole gamut of ideas fighting in my head every day. So, I decided to pick the best ones I came up with lately and to write an article about them. Everybody loves ideas and lists, right? Let’s go.

1. Confidence Sets

If you are not wasting your training time on useless crap and have worked up to some heavy ass weights in your compound exercises, then you should have been scared to lift that amount of weight at least once. Self-doubt is normal at this point. This is our brain’s self-defense function. Anyway, this is when confidence sets come really handy.

Let’s use the deadlift as an example. At the moment of writing this article, my working weight in the deadlift is 180 kg. Usually, I warm up with 70-75 kg for 6-8, then 120-125 kg for 5, then 140 kg for 3. By this time, I feel pretty warmed up, however, instead of going right to the working weight, I perform confidence sets with 160 kg and 170 kg for 1-2 reps.

What’s the trick? Confidence sets are intermediate warm-up sets that should be performed just for 1-2 reps. Their goal is to give you confidence in your strength (hence the name) while not tiring you physically. I implement this technique with every exercise I have doubts in, and it works every time.

Additionally, this trick can be used with advanced calisthenics. However, I never applied it this way because somehow calisthenics always seem safer psychologically.

2. Frustration in Advanced Lifting

If you are a novice lifter and you train correctly, then you are probably stoked for strength training. I bet you are counting seconds to your training sessions, and you think that you would train all the time if you could. Additionally, you may believe that the stronger you get, the more awesome workouts you have. Well, the reality is contrary to this. The more advanced you get, the less cool sessions you experience.

How to retain interest in strength training despite the frustration? If you are a seasoned lifter, then the best way to do this (except smarter programming) is to keep your expectations low. You should not get frustrated if you miss a lift or if you feel weak at a certain session. If you eat enough protein and calories on a regular basis and your programming is decent, then the reasons for a missed lift (or overall fatigue) are out of your control. Besides, one session means nothing in the long term.

Additionally, I suggest you to listen to your body, to embrace such sessions, and to use them for some sort of an auto-regulated de-load. If you feel no energy at your workout, then do not sweat it. Do less volume and call it a day. On the other hand, if you feel energized, then give yourself a high-five and lift as much and as long as you can.

3. Simplicity in Nutrition

I seem to talk about simplicity in every article. Nevertheless, I’m ready to repeat this over and over: “Simpler = better”.

When it comes to nutrition, there are lots of approaches. And there are all kinds of hype about it. It seems that smart marketers want you to concentrate on any minor aspect of dieting except the stuff that actually works. I won’t call names here, but you know who and what I mean. Interestingly, people hop on the false diet guru’s train without even applying common sense to what he/she says. Well, nobody wants a simple answer, everybody wants a secret.

To cut a long story short, there are only 4 numbers that control how you look:

– Calories;

– Protein;

– Carbs;

– Fat.

That’s it. If you fine-tune these numbers, you WILL reach your aesthetic goals. Everything else doesn’t matter much. If your numbers are right, you can eat whatever you want and whenever you want. But ONLY if your numbers are right.

How to find out your numbers? This will require experimentation and patience. The blueprint is simple:

– Find out the amount of calories you need to maintain your bodyweight. If you are not familiar with calorie counting, then just multiply your bodyweight in pounds (BW in kg X 2.2) by 12 to 16 (if you have a sedentary lifestyle, then use 12; if you spend the whole day on your feet, then use 16; if you are in between, try 14). Eat this amount of calories every day at least for 2 weeks. If your bodyweight stays the same after these 2 weeks, then your number is correct (give yourself a round of applause for being a lucky mofo). If you lose weight, then you are eating too little. In this case, you need to add 100-200 calories to your daily amount and to stay with this number for another 2 weeks. If you gain weight, then you need to subtract 100-200 calories and stay there for another 2 weeks.

– Your calories should be comprised of proper macronutrient amounts. Your protein should be at least 2.2 g per 1 kg of your bodyweight and somewhere between 30-40% of your daily calories.

– I wouldn’t recommend eating too much fats. Anything between 20-30% of your daily calories should do.

– The rest of your daily calories should be carbs.

– You can experiment with carb to fat ratio, but it is more a matter of preference. Appearance-wise and performance-wise it shouldn’t make too much of a difference if you stay in given ranges.

– After establishing your maintenance, decide what you need: to build muscle or to lose fat. The rule of thumb is if you are comfortable with your current bodyfat level, then you need to bulk. If not, then you need to cut.

– To cut, you need to be in a caloric deficit. To do this, you need to subtract 10-20% of your daily calories. Optimally, do this at expense of carbs and fats. The safe rate of weight loss is usually around 2 kg per month. If you are losing weight too fast, then add back 100 calories. If you are losing weight too slow, then subtract 100 calories.

– To bulk, you need to eat over your maintenance. Add 10-20% to your number. The safe rate of mass gain is usually around 1-2 kg per 2 months. If you are gaining too much fat, cut back 100 calories. If you are not gaining weight, then add 100 calories.

This is it. Fuck anything else and stop overthinking. Do just this and you will reach your aesthetic goals. Once you understand that simple stuff works, then you can start experimenting with flashy techniques. But are they really necessary?

NOTE: Of course, I assume that you are not a beginner. For novice lifters, everything may be a bit easier and faster.

There are several additional points I need to discuss in this section.

A) Yes, you can eat anything you want as long as you know this food’s calories and macros. Flexible dieting works. However, if you are in a caloric deficit, then I would suggest to pick rice over cookies, because it keeps you way fuller. In my case, less hunger guarantees that nobody gets hurt around me.

B) Why no calorie cycling? Because it is not necessary. The effect it gives you is not that significant. The same goes for carb cycling.

C) If you implement the concept of weekly calories over daily calories, then calorie cycling can work good (and can be somewhat fun). All you need is to give yourself a weekly calorie goal instead of daily. This way you will be able to vary your daily calories as much as you wish and still get the results because your weekly calories will be in check. For example, instead of eating 2500 calories per day, aim to eat 17500 calories per week. This can look like this:

Mon – 2100

Tue – 2600

Wed – 2500

Thu – 2200

Fri – 2300

Sat – 2800

Sun – 3000

Total: 17500

D) No intermittent fasting? While it is a really effective way to eat a lot in one sitting and still lose fat, it is not essential.

E) “But there are tons of guys who get results without counting calories” you may say. If you are one of them, then you are a lucky bastard. If not, then man up and do what needs to be done. If you are not able to control 4 simple numbers in your life, then you probably have no balls either.

F) Finally, the most important thing I learned about nutrition is that you can’t build muscle and lose fat at the same time (unless you are a beginner, a steroid user, or the incredible Hulk).

4. Wrist Health

If you are serious about calisthenics and handbalancing, then you need to think about keeping your wrists healthy. It can be really tempting to skip the proper warm-up and wrist-strengthening exercises, but the price will be high. If you fuck your wrists up, then you won’t be able to perform the majority of bodyweight exercises and, importantly, you will get weaker at them. Additionally, recovery will take some serious time. So, don’t be a dumbass and implement the exercises on the video into your weekly training routine.

5. Heavy Isolation Work

The video below got me thinking. What if we can build up our smaller bodyparts faster with heavy isolation work?

Well, my idea is simple. What if heavy isolation work can lead to more strength and muscle growth in smaller bodyparts? If I remember correctly, something similar wrote Brooks Kubik in his Dinosaur Training. Also, Reg Park comes to my mind with his 5 x 5 in calf raises.

So, I invite you to try this out with me. The rules are simple:

– Exercise selection should be smart. The health of your joints should be a priority. Heavy skull crushers is a retarded idea. Heavy close-grip bench presses or one-arm bodyweight triceps extensions are good ideas.

– The body part is up to you.

– Perform 2-3 exercises specifically for a chosen bodypart once a week. The first exercise should be done with heavy weight and for 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps. The second and third ones should be performed for 2-3 sets of 8-15 reps.

Let me know how this worked for you.

6. Deadlifting Heavy Once per Two Weeks

This may sound counter-intuitive, but once you are past twice-bodyweight deadlift, training the exercise in a heavy mode (3 x 3; 4 x 2; working up to 1-, 2-, or 3-rep max, etc.) once per two weeks can work better than once a week. This may happen due to a fact that the deadlift is quite stressful to your nervous system, and two weeks allow more rest for CNS.

Anyway, if you decide to implement this technique, should you rest for the whole two weeks between sessions? No. This can work, but it is not optimal. My preferred method is to alternate between heavy and assistance sessions. This way you rest, but not lose the skill. Say, your weak point is the lockout. Your sessions can look like this:

Week 1: Heavy Deadlifts – 3 x 3

Week 2: Rack Pulls – 3 x 6

Week 3: Heavy Deadlifts – 4 x 2 (+5 kg)

Week 4: Rack Pulls – 3 x 5 (+5 kg)

Week 5: (progress further)

This technique seems to work really well for me. Try it and let me know how it worked for you.

7. Amounts of Cardio

Most lifters have a love/hate relationship with cardio. I was one of them until I discovered that cardio can be fun. After that, I faced a new “problem”. I love skateboarding so much that I ride and do tricks 3-5 times per week and usually for more than an hour. This exceeds the usual prescription of “15-30 minutes a couple times per week” quite a bit. What “gurus” say about too much cardio? “You will inevitably lose muscle”. Have I experienced muscle loss? No. Why? Because I followed the guidelines I laid out in the point #3 of this article. I ate the proper amounts of weekly calories for my regimen (no matter how unpredictable it was). Also, I want to point out that all this “cardio eats your muscle” fear is quite overrated. Cardiovascular activity is good for your heart (obviously) and general health. It will help you to lose fat easier and to keep fat gain at minimum while bulking. All you need to do is to monitor the rate of your weight loss/weight gain. If you are losing/gaining weight at a rate I mentioned at the point #3 of this article, then you should be fine. The point to look out for, though, is overtraining. If you are working too hard at your cardio session, you may need to squeeze in a day of rest before your next strength workout.

Additional advantage of cardio/supplemental activity is this G-Flux thing. You can read about it here. In several words, it states that eating more while training more leads to a better body composition than eating less while training less. For example, the same person will experience more gainz training more and eating a maintenance of 3000 calories, than training less and eating a maintenance of 2500 calories. Is it true? It may be. Anyway, it should be an additional stimulus not to drop the activity/sport you like just because some bozo who knows nothing about nutrition told you that too much cardio “eats your muscle”.

8. Breathing

“- When you feel life out of focus… always return to basic of life.

– What, praying?

– Breathing. No breathe, no life.”

Recently, I found out that deep breathing is a cure for lots of mental and even physical problems. As busy adults, we rarely concentrate on breathing in our daily activities. That’s certainly a big mistake. If you think that, deep breathing is too easy of an answer to basic mental health and confidence, let me challenge you. Try to concentrate on breathing deep all the time for next 5 days. It should not take much effort (well, except some focus and commitment). Breathe into your belly, not chest. Make all your breaths as deep as possible. After 5 days, let me know how you feel. I bet you will be calmer, more relaxed and confident. When I tried this for the first time, I experienced spontaneous smiling and laughter, and a general sense of well-being and happiness. I bet you should feel this too.

9. Assess/Reassess

If you still are looking for the best training program or diet approach, let me stop you. Let me share another secret with you. There is no best training program, as well as there is no best diet approach. They all work and they all fail at the same time. The variable that determines whether they work or not is you.

How to create the best training program and diet approach for you? It is quite simple. You need to take a time-tested approach like the Starting Strength program or flexible dieting. You need to give it a fair amount of time (3 months minimum) and to follow everything precisely. The results should be written down, of course. Then you need to sit down and analyze what worked and what didn’t. Obviously, keep doing what works until it stops. What didn’t work should be adjusted. Be creative and brave. If you try every possible solution and the thing still doesn’t work (usually because it is complicated, not simple), then drop it or replace it with something similar.

That’s how you create the best training program and the best diet approach for you.

10. Drinking

Finally, let’s talk about good old booze. Ain’t you have a feeling that your day is wasted unless you have a glass of heart-warming bourbon? With all seriousness, I see no big deal in drinking in moderation. I don’t think that booze by itself will have a serious impact on your body composition either, especially if you drink only on cheat days, or take it into account (yes, beer, wine and their spirit friends have calories too). The only thing to look out for is alcoholism, but for it to develop, you need a mix of low willpower and high daily alcohol consumption (which is highly unlikely for a person who reads the Rough Strength blog regularly).

Also, let me say a couple of words to health nazis here. If you decide to live clean, hooray for you; this kind of commitment is certainly respectable. However, if you think that everybody must live clean, fuck you. Everybody has their own choice.

Closing Thoughts

At first, I thought to split this article into several parts, but then I decided to leave it as is. I hope you have found something useful in these 2900+ rapid fire words. Thanks for reading.

Play rough!

Alex

P.S. In case you missed the podcast we did with Scott Iardella, check it out here.

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

Do you have any thoughts? Let’s chat in comments.

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Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

Rough Strength Music Recommendation:

The post 10 Rapid Fire Ideas to Boost Your Gains appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.

According to the latest research, training with cool music can give you up to 42% performance boost. Well, OK, I made this up, but in my experience, this statement is true. Training with proper music makes all exercises ridiculously easier. You just feel pumped up and can do much more than usual. With right music, you can achieve that state of being unstoppable.

Of course, if you are some kind of a monk and you despise anything but training in silence, then you will find nothing useful in this article. However, if you like to train with music but struggling to find a proper soundtrack to your diesel gains, then you are in a right place, my friend. Let me give you some options (in no particular order).

Here We Go

1. AC/DC – Highway to Hell

2. KEN Mode – No; I’m in Control

3. Led Zeppelin – How Many More Times?

4. Kyuss – Hurricane

5. Moderat – Bad Kingdom

6. Every Time I Die – El Dorado

7. Deftones – You’ve Seen the Butcher

8. Time to Burn – Nayeli

9. Led Zeppelin – When the Levee Breaks

10. Massive Attack – Angel

11. Neurosis – Locust Star

12. Nirvana – School

13. AC/DC – Are You Ready?

14. Ultraista – Smalltalk (Four Tet Remix)

15. The Chariot – Evan Perks

16. Desert Sessions – In My Head… or Something

17. TV on the Radio – DLZ

18. Rosetta – Ayil

19. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Phone Home

20. Limp Bizkit – Take a Look Around

21. Melvins – A History of Bad Men

22. Moderat – Rusty Nails

23. Every Time I Die – The New Black

24. Mastodon – Blood and Thunder

25. Neurosis – Times of Grace

26. Chickenhawk – Kerosene

27. Oxbow – Sawmill

28. Fatboy Slim – Right Here, Right Now

29. Botch – Japam

30. Limp Bizkit – My Way

31. Radiohead – Lotus Flower

32. Knut – Wyriwys

33. Apparat – Limelight

34. Tom Waits – Goin’ Out West

35. Every Time I Die – Decayin’ with the Boys

36. KEN Mode – Counter Culture Complex

37. The Chariot – The City

38. Nirvana – Milk It

39. (hed) P.E. – Bartender

40. Narrows – Under the Guillotine

41. Alice in Chains – Would?

42. Rosetta – Wake

43. Burial – Archangel

44. Fidlar – Cheap Beer

45. Killradio – Raised on Whipped Cream

46. Deftones – Diamond Eyes

47. Morphine – Thursday

48. Mastodon – The Motherload

49. Jon Hopkins – Open Eye Signal

50. Harley’s War – Skarred 4 Life

51. Fidlar – Stoked and Broke

52. Botch – Saint Matthew Returns to the Womb

53. Cancer Bats – Sabotage

54. Modeselektor – Berlin

55. Motorhead – No Class

56. Mastodon – Ember City

57. LL Cool J – Mama Said Knock You Out

58. Weedeater – God Luck and Good Speed

59. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Gold Teeth on a Bum

60. Bongzilla – Greenthumb

61. Every Time I Die – Roman Holiday

62. AC/DC – Thunderstruck

63. stonefromthesky – Irreversible (of course, I couldn’t leave this article without shameless self-advertising)

Closing Thoughts

This list could be 100 times bigger easily. It took a reasonable amount of self-control to narrow it down to 63 songs. I hope you’ve found something cool for yourself. By this point, you should be fucking pumped up to get those gains. So, waste no time.

Play rough!

Alex Z

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

Do you have any thoughts? Let’s chat in comments.

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First name *

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And don’t forget about RSS Feed, Facebook page and Twitter.

Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

The post Rough Strength Ultimate Training Playlist appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.

Have you ever wondered how professional athletes can train almost daily for SEVERAL hours per day? Well, according to this correlation, it is possible only in one case: they are so strong and conditioned that their sport training is not that intense for them anymore. It is skill work for them rather than strength.

[NOTE: The higher your training frequency and volume, the lower your training intensity should be. Otherwise, you will overtrain]

So, what if you could take this idea and somehow implement it in your own training for more results and fun? Check out what I came up with.

Strength or Skill?

“But strength IS a skill, isn’t it?” Well, yes, smartass. However, although strength training is definitely a skill, it requires much higher intensity than playing a guitar, and thus you recuperate from it way longer. Let’s not focus our attention on semantics here because that’s not the point of this article (and simply because I don’t give a fuck about them at the moment).

So, have you been in a situation when you missed a repetition (or fell out of a hold) in a bodyweight exercise (like freestanding handstand push-ups or planche push-ups) not because of muscle fatigue, but because you made a slightly wrong move due to lack of a skill? If you are past beginner progression steps in calisthenics, then I bet you experienced such a bummer at least once. Such missed repetitions in addition to what you have read in the intro to this article got me thinking. What if you can successfully train these exercises more often? If your muscles are strong enough in a given movement pattern and the matter is in balance and skill, then you should be able to do this, right? Right. Experience and experiments show that you can train these bad boys more often than once a week and, importantly, progress.

Additionally, my recent training discoveries revealed that very skill-dependent exercises are sub-optimal for developing muscle and general strength if you use conventional programming. For example, weighted dips in this case would be superior to planche push-ups at developing the upper body. You will experience far quicker results with simpler, more progressive exercises rather than with complex ones. Do I mean that complex exercises that require serious skill are useless? No, not at all. You are the one who’s in charge of what your body is capable of. My question is what if you can have both?

So, I came up with an idea to separate strength and skill work and to achieve the best of both worlds. Why limit your skill-dependent exercises to ‘heavy once a week’ and stagnate in gaining strength if you can train them more frequently and let the simpler movement pattern exercises take care of strength? The answer is obvious for me.

How to Implement This?

My idea is to split training into two parts: “strength” and “skill” obviously.

Strength part will be low-rep (3-6 repetitions per set) and low-volume (3-5 sets). Something conventional like Starting Strength will do. The goal of this section is to develop general strength with compound moves like squats, presses and rows. Additionally, you can put skill-specific exercises here. You know, the ones that develop specific strength for certain skills. For example, muscle-up transitions. Skill-specific drills should be trained in “strength” mode too.

How often should you train in this mode? 3 times a week should be perfect.

What exercises to choose? It all depends on skills you want to achieve. If you want to develop a good planche, then you should concentrate on strengthening your shoulders, back, traps, and biceps. My personal choices would be weighted dips, weighted chin-ups and deadlifts. Let me emphasize that although these exercises can speed up your progress in developing a skill through strengthening the proper muscle groups, they can’t replace the actual skill training. In other words, strong weighted dips won’t grant you a planche; only planche training will bring you closer to the skill.

Finally, if you plan to use this method, I want you to make your strength program well-rounded. This will not only facilitate the progress, but will be a right decision in a long run health-wise. Muscular imbalances developed due to poor programming can lead to injuries.

Skill part will be way higher in volume. You can practice literally any time you feel like it. The amount of repetitions per set depends on your strength levels and the exercise you picked. The most important rule is skill work should not be high in intensity and should not be performed to failure. Use 50% of effort. If you feel that the exercise you picked for skill work is too heavy, then do not hesitate to scale down to an easier drill. Skill work is designed to polish up your technique through practice, not to tire you.

What exercises to choose? I’m assuming here that acquiring bodyweight skills is the highest priority for you. Nevertheless, you can use this method for any other strength-related or endurance-related skills. Answering the question, pick any skills you are interested in. However, I wouldn’t concentrate on more than 3 skills at a time.

Putting It All Together

So, let’s say you want to achieve free-standing handstand push-ups, pistols and the one-arm chin-up. Your program can look something like this:

Day 1

AM

A) Military Presses – 3 sets of 4-6

B) Weighted Chin-Ups – 3 sets of 4-6

PM

Lower body skill work

Day 2

Skill work

Day 3

AM

A) Squats – 3 sets of 4-6

B) Double Kettlebell Snatches – 3 sets of 3-5

PM

Upper body skill work

Day 4

Skill work

Day 5

A) Wall-Assisted Handstand Push-Ups – 3 sets of maximum

B) Pulley-Assisted One-Arm Chin-Ups – 3 sets of 3

Day 6

Skill work

Day 7

Off

For “strength” section, use any training tools you enjoy. Kettlebells, sandbags, barbells, dumbbells, etc. will do; the simpler – the better.

“Skill work” will contain any progression steps leading to the picked skills. In this case, skill sessions can be comprised of handstands, partial free-standing handstand push-ups, archer chin-ups, one-arm chin-up negatives, finger-assisted chin-ups, assisted pistols. You should scale everything to your current levels of strength of course.

Additionally, there is no point in limiting yourself to calisthenics skills only. For example, I use skateboarding for the lower body skill work and handbalancing for the upper body. You can use anything else you like: karate, parkour, bmx, tumbling, etc. Just use the principle of progressive overload and you will be good.

Closing Thoughts

So, there you have it. Develop your strength, practice your skills, and be awesome. Do not overcomplicate things and you will have a chance to become a supehuman. Finally, never idealize one training tool over the others. Be open-minded. Combine implements and experience the synergistic effect.

Play rough!

Alex

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

Do you have any thoughts? Let’s chat in comments.

If you want to receive more posts like this right to your e-mail, subscribe to the awesome newsletter here:

First name *

Email *

And don’t forget about RSS Feed, Facebook page and Twitter.

Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

Rough Strength Music Recommendation:

The post Strength VS Skill Training appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.

If you read this post, then you should be aware that I simplified my training as much as I could lately. I lift conventional weights. You know, barbells, dumbbells, etc. I still do calisthenics, but way less than before. This is the path of endurable resistance for me at the moment of writing this article.

So, what have I been able to learn (or relearn) during this time. Well, lots of things. Let me share some of them with you.

Conclusion #1: Simple Exercises Are Better for Building Muscle

It may be hard to accept, but the simplest exercises are the best for muscle-building. Barbell bench presses are superior to one-arm or planche push-ups. Barbell squats are superior to pistols.

Let me be an example. I still follow the same routine I laid out in the “Simplify” article, and it still works. I lift more weight. I do more reps, sets, etc. That training program consists of simple compound exercises. I do way less thinking regarding this type of training (because to be honest, you do not need to think a lot about lifting barbells/dumbbells). I just come to the gym, lift more, and go home. It should not be harder than that.

As a result, in 4 months I am 4 kg heavier than I was. My nutrition was the same. I don’t measure the levels of bodyfat, but considering that I got stronger in archer chin-ups with full one-arm negatives, I don’t think bodyfat is an issue. Of course, this could happen due to training variety (switching the focus from calisthenics/kettlebells to barbells/dumbbells). However, building muscle with bodyweight/kettlebell/sandbag exercises was never this easy.

Take-home point: if your goal is to build as much muscle as possible, maybe calisthenics, kettlebells, or sandbags are not for you. If you still believe you can do this with Rough Strength training implements, then it can be a good idea to work on simple compound exercises (like weighted dips or weighted chin-ups) along with the cool stuff.

Conclusion #2: MED Works

Several years ago I stumbled upon a concept of a minimum effective dose [MED] and its application in strength training. I was confused because the author suggested to train less, and it was rather strange to me at that time. The principle of MED in strength training calls for using just the bare minimum of effort. You know, if you can do less and get pretty close results to doing more, then do less. Well, now I understand this concept and fully support it. You do not need to train just for the sake of training. It won’t do you any good. Train for results and have fun in your spare time.

If we take a look at my program, there is only 3-4 exercises per day 3 times a week. The results speak for themselves.

[Note: minimum effective doses of a competing athlete and a recreational strength training enthusiast can differ a lot. Use what is suitable for you]

Take-home point: do only what needs to be done. If you can get away with doing less, then do less.

Conclusion #3: Routine Flexibility Guarantees You Consistency

When things get crazy, it is hard to squeeze in all the training sessions you have planned. That’s when a simple and flexible routine comes handy. Despite the travelling and lots of other events, I was able not to miss any sessions of the “Simplify” routine. How? Due to its structure. If you take a closer look at it, you will notice that it is an Upper-Lower-Upper split. This gives you lots of room for manipulation. You can easily pair days in case you have time only for two days in a row instead of classic Mon-Wed-Fri. For example, on Monday I perform an upper body session, on Wednesday – lower body. Now, for some reason Friday and the weekend become unavailable for training. Instead of missing sessions, I can move the last one to Thursday.

Take-home point: if you have a busy schedule and make up silly excuses about it, then a flexible training routine might be a way to go.

Conclusion #4: Pick a Gym with a Good Air Ventilation System

This was never an issue for me because I trained either outdoors, or in my apartment (and both of them have sufficient air supply). However, my current gym has a so-so air ventilation system. This causes some lightheadedness here and there. This is not a big problem for me. However, you should be aware of this stuff.

Take-home point: train outdoors.

Conclusion #5: Watch Your Technique

Another thing I’ve (re)noticed is that lots of people use mediocre technique in 90% of exercises. What’s worse is that they try to “teach” others the same mistakes. If you are trying to help them, they just engage that douchebag mode because they think they know it all. Do not be one of these losers. Clean up your technique as much as you can and be open to constructive critique.

Additionally, there is a certain group of people in the gym who try to invent new exercises. You know, gym Teslas and Edisons. In 99% of cases, they end up doing useless crap because they lack the simple knowledge of anatomy. Also, they become “stars” of gym fail compilations on YouTube. Do not be one of them either.

Take-home point: your technique should be as close to perfect as possible.

Conclusion #6: Try to Avoid Mirrors

I know it is hard when mirrors are everywhere you look. However, looking in the mirror too much is not only narcissistic and gay. If you look in the mirror while performing an exercise, you project your energy there instead of the resistance you are fighting with. When I found out this simple tweak back in the day, my strength increased tremendously.

Take-home point: look at the weight your trying to crush.

Conclusion #7: Diet Matters

A no-brainer. Yet anyone can become a victim of a poor diet. I am talking here about energy on your training session. If you still believe that what you eat exactly before the training matters, then you think not deep enough. The energy levels during your workout depend not on what you eat 2 hours before, but on what you ate last day. Digestion is a long process. It takes hours, not minutes. If you eating is shitty today, maybe tomorrow is not a good day for serious training.

Let me explain why this is important. Let’s assume you’ve eaten poorly the day before. Today you come to a training session and for some reason you have no energy. The best solution is to go home, eat and comeback tomorrow. However, you think that a real macho would train anyway. The second best solution is to lower the working weights a bit. The training session is already wasted, but you could at least practice in some exercises. However, you think that a real macho would use his regular working weights or even more. As a result – BOOM! – you get injured and miss several weeks of training.

Take-home point: as a rule of thumb, if your eating is shitty today, take a day off and eat properly tomorrow.

Conclusion #8: Nothing Changes

I’ve been in different gyms in 2007, then 2010, then 2012, then 2015, and nothing has ever changed. The majority of people still believe that machines are superior to weights. The majority still believes that supplements matter. People still come to the gym to socialize, not to train. People still do dumb shit there. It is frustrating picture to see.

No take-home point.

Closing Thoughts

I hope my experience was useful to you and you learned something new. Thanks for reading.

P.S. There was the Rough Strength’s birthday on April, 6th. Thank you for your support and enduring reading my ideas. Remember, there is no Rough Strength without you.

Keep playing rough!

Alex “The Conclusion Boss” Zinchenko

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

Do you have any thoughts? Let’s chat in comments.

If you want to receive more posts like this right to your e-mail, subscribe to the awesome newsletter here:

First name *

Email *

And don’t forget about RSS Feed, Facebook page and Twitter.

Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

Rough Strength Music Recommendation:

The post Lessons from the Gym appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.

I bet you dreamed about another “5 Ways to Build Bigger Arms” or “7 Foods You Need to Avoid” piece, but I’m not going to indulge you. Instead, I’ll tell you a story about what really makes a difference in your life. I’ll expose the biggest secret that distinguishes weak always-whining people from badass mofos you adore. And this secret is called “perseverance”.

Get Up

Perseverance is a simple concept. Everybody knows what it is. Yet I rarely meet people that not only understand how it works, but implement it in their lives. You can say without a doubt that perseverance is a lost feature.

While thinking about the concept, I’ve come to a conclusion that perseverance is all about getting up. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall. What does matter is whether you get up. You know how people like to brag about their attempts. Something like “Oh, I had a band once; we tried everything, but we never made it” or “Yeah, I tried everything to lose fat, but nothing works”. People count their failures as a measure of ephemeral success. However, they miss the point because amount of failures has nothing to do with success. Getting over the last failure and still getting up does. If you tried everything and nothing seems to work, then guess what?

Try harder.

You can have anything you want if you are prepared to get up and fight for it. I’m not joking. Think about anything you crave right now. I bet perseverance combined with even mild intelligence will get you there (of course, for stuff like time travel and creating a virus for a zombie apocalypse, you will need something more than “mild”).

Write Your Own Story

You know the story of the majority. In their twenties or even teens, they may have the courage to try something new, not to conform, to take charge of their life. However, once they fall, they cry like little girls and obey the circumstances. They become slaves of their environment. They stop dreaming and live miserable lives. Or even worse – they believe the conformity lies all the other losers are happy to repeat them millions of times. They irreversibly forget the main life principle you need to fucking carve in your brain:

There is only one person who knows what’s best for you. It is YOU.

But what if you don’t want to end like weak people? Prepare to fight. Every day. Seriously, once you decide that losers’ way is not an option for you, you will face a whole gamut of obstacles:

– 99% of people will say that you are wrong. There are lots of explanations for this. People are envious, they don’t want to feel worse than you, they don’t believe themselves and in themselves, they are close-minded, etc. You should accept the fact that almost everyone will say that you are wasting your time, and some of them will try to break you to prove they are right. Of course, you need to mute them mentally. Use “I don’t give a fuck” ethic. Remember, only you know what’s best for you. On the bright side, there will be 1% of people who will support you. Treat them like gold.

– You will fall. It is a part of the process. The higher you aim, the more times you will be on your knees, broken. There will be times when all you want is to curl up on the floor and lie like that forever. However, you should not surrender the temptation to leave everything if what you are doing is fueled by your inner bonfire. Get up every time.

– You will be distracted from your goal. There are people-parasites and laziness/procrastination. Both of them separate you from your goals much more than the actual amount of work that needs to be done. People-parasites will require your time giving you nothing in return. You know who I’m talking about. I bet you can name at least 5 “parasites” in your social circle off the top of your head. People that talk and talk about useless crap that does not develop you in any way. The solution is simple – ignore them. Do not return their calls. Do not answer their messages. Be a douchebag. Regarding laziness/procrastination, it is not that simple. You will need to stand on one leg, bend forward like in the Single-Leg Deadlift, and use your other leg to kick your lazy ass anytime you find yourself wasting your time. It is way simpler if you have a loved one or kids, or a good friend. I believe they all will kick your ass with healthy vigor.

That’s just a glimpse of the obstacles you will encounter, but the answer is always the same – perseverance. The everlasting cycle of falling and getting up – that’s the price of your dreams coming to reality.

Another Secret

Yeah, you know it already, but I’ll say it anyway. Life is a cycle of light and darkness. Embrace the fact that the darker your times now, the lighter you future will be. Everything happens for a reason. Persevere and you will be rewarded.

Closing Thoughts

You may be thinking: “Seriously, bro, aren’t you writing about exercises, foods, and stuff?” Well, there are things to be said that are way more important than exercises or foods. Perseverance is a life-changing concept for me. I hope this article will help you to deal with your own circumstances.

Play rough!

Alex Zinchenko

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

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So, I received an e-mail the other day from a guy called Pete Anthony. He shared his experience with intermittent fasting and strength training. His article was quite good, so I asked if he wanted to write a guest post for Rough Strength. Here is the result. Enjoy.

Fat loss and muscle gain. When it comes to health & fitness, those are essentially the two things that people want. They are essentially the two ingredients that when combined together yield looking good in the mirror.

The truth is that getting either is really simple. You lose fat by expending more calories than you take in over time. You gain muscle by consistently doing progressive overload, forcing your body to adapt to the recurring stressor.

Despite how bone-headedly simple either of these tasks are, it seems that most people just can’t seem to figure either out. Why? Why are these exceedingly simple tasks so apparently complicated for 9 out of 10 people who want to “get fit?”

We’re smart enough to get PhD’s, split atoms, build silicon microprocessors, and put a man on the moon, yet the vast majority of 1st world individuals can’t figure out how to get at least lean & healthy enough to get their doctors off their ass? What gives?

The purpose of this post is to tackle this big question in an honest way. I’ve amassed 15 years of experience in health & fitness, learned how this seedy industry actually works, and at one point actually had to come back to leanness from corpulence myself. In doing so, I’ve gained some keen insight into this seemingly ridiculous issue of people not being able to figure out either of these simple tasks.

Here’s one thing I’ve realized: people have an inbred desire for a magic bullet short cut. It’s human nature. We’re conversationalists. It’s imbued into our DNA. Think prehistoric times: If a person could figure out away to achieve the same results via expending half the energy, that might have meant the difference between survival + replication or death. It makes sense that effective laziness is an evolutionarily positive trait that was selected for.

Here’s another thing I’ve realized: the health & fitness industry has learned that marketing to emotion is much more effective than marketing to rational logic. And, this strong desire for a magic bullet shortcut is an emotional gold mine.

You see it in other industries too:

The “secret” to getting rich online that corporations don’t want you to know about
The “secret” to attracting women and getting laid that true players don’t want you to know about
The “secret” to gaining 50 pounds of muscle in 3 months that doctors don’t want you to know about

You know what’s funny? A lot of people assume the people responsible for this kind of marketing are truly evil. Maybe some of them are, but the honest truth is that most of them are not. Most of them are pragmatists. They sell what people want to buy, and for most that means a delusional magic bullet solution to their problem. People want to believe in the pixie dust, no matter how ridiculous it might actually sound if a modicum of logical thought was applied to it.

The saying goes “the customer is always right.” Well, if the customers want to buy a fairy tale, then a lot of marketers will shrug, say ok, and sell fairy tales.

Here’s how the tens of thousands of recycled articles of this nature would end:

There’s no shortcut, you need to work hard and be consistent, blah blah blah, diligence and discipline, blah blah blah, insert generic motivational/inspirational quote, good luck.

That cliche advice doesn’t actually help anyone though, so I’m not going to do that. Rather, I’m going to honestly discuss how to shed yourself of “magic bullet syndrome”. [AZ: You still need to work hard though. Do not be delusional]

Step 1. Understanding: There is no magic bullet

It’s tempting to believe in golden goose eggs. I’m guilty of it myself. We all are, to some degree, at some point in our lives. But, we just have to accept that, at least for now, there is no magic bullet for fat loss or strength gain. We also have to understand our inherent desire for a magic bullet to exist. It’s our prehistoric survivalist DNA screaming loudly. Understanding that for what it is helps.

Step 2. Honesty: Embrace the desire for efficacy

Why do you want magic fat loss burning pills? Why do you want a magic routine that can pack on muscles faster than steroids? I’ll tell you why, it’s because you want maximum results with minimal effort. Let me tell you something: There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s human nature to want a shortcut, and it’s there for a good reason, as I explained earlier.

The idea that you should endure pain and sacrifice just for it’s own sake is ridiculous sentiment that’s pushed forth by fitness narcissists who want to feel superior to you. Ignore it. It’s a total waste of time. Rather, be honest with yourself about what you actually want.

Is looking good naked all you really want? Well, then why do you think you’re going to stick with that marathon training club, or that overpriced CrossFit gym, or kickboxing yoga class? I don’t think you will for the same reason that I don’t think I would either: none of that shit is actually necessary to look good naked. Here’s what is:

Do just enough resistance training to build decent musculature
Lose enough fat for it to show nicely via eating less food

The way to success is to be shameless about your true desires. That means being honest about what you actually want, no matter how vain or shallow it may be. Then, you start doing what actually matters towards achieving it and stop doing other unnecessary shit that you don’t really need to be doing. Which leads me to…

Step 3. Minimalism: Embrace your inherent laziness and use the minimally effective dose

With my many years of experience in the personal pursuit of health and vanity and in consulting others to do the same, the most important thing I’ve learned is this: You need to figure out how to make achieving your goal as easy as possible.

People always try to pile more onto their already packed plate of life to get what they want. More training, more dietary restriction, more more more. This is the wrong approach. You should be asking yourself “how can I get the same desired results by doing less?”

Minimalism is a beautiful thing. It’s what allowed me to achieve the following look by lifting 2-3 times per week for less than 45 minutes, Doing no cardio, and eating pretty much whatever the hell I wanted to, as long as it wasn’t in blatant excess:

Some people might call me lazy or my results subpar. Well, I honestly don’t give a fuck. Because, the only thing that ever matters at the end of the day is what I’ll actually do, not what sounds good to do on paper. If you can get your desired results with less time and effort, you’re more likely to succeed, that’s just basic logic.

Concluding Thoughts:

There’s no magic bullet, but deep down we all pretty much know that already.
There’s nothing wrong with desire for a magic bullet, though.
Get as close to the magic bullet as you can by taking the minimalist approach: how can I get what I want with as little work as possible?

There you have it. Another success story of minimalism, intermittent fasting and simplicity. How many times should you read this stuff to actually use it and take charge of your life?

Play rough!

AZ

Every time you don’t like and share this article, you upset a kitten somewhere.

Do you have any thoughts? Let’s chat in comments.

If you want to receive more posts like this right to your e-mail, subscribe to the awesome newsletter here:

First name *

Email *

And don’t forget about RSS Feed, Facebook page and Twitter.

Rough Strength Files Book

What if you could gain impressive strength, build serious muscle, and get ripped with no gym memberships or fancy exercise machines? What if you could do it with anything you have at hand?

The Rough Strength Files will share with you 42 useful ideas on getting more with less in regards to strength training, nutrition, and mindset. This book is an organized treasure chest densely packed with knowledge and practical advice on how to make everything work even if you have nothing.

Click here for more information

The Shortcut to Your Goals

Are you tired of lack of results? Strength training seems like rocket science to you? Do you want to get strong, build muscle, lose fat, and get awesome finally? Let the professional do all the dirty work for you.

Click here for more information

Rough Strength Music Recommendation:

The post The Fat Loss and Strength Gain Magic Bullet Problem appeared first on Alex Zinchenko's Rough Strength.